Arriving Soon In A Mailbox Near You...

Our property tax bills will soon be arriving in the mail. The numbers on those bills and the present real property tax crises that created them, are an indication of how broken and unresponsive our state government in Albany has become. Over the past four years, as our property taxes have increased over 40% statewide, we have heard nothing from the Senate Education Committee; no leadership, no guidance, no research and no reform.

The crisis has become so acute that property tax citizens’ organizations have sprung up all over New York, especially here in Dutchess County where nine of thirteen school budgets were rejected this past Spring. Arlington School District Superintendent, Frank Pepe, was quoted in the Poughkeepsie Journal as saying: “This is not a vote against Arlington, but a vote against the governor and the state legislature for their inaction on school tax reform.”

During the last four years while this tax crisis has exploded, Poughkeepsie’s Steve Saland, in his role as chairman of the Senate Education Committee, blocked all serious reform legislation in his committee. As a result, he is more responsible for our current property tax crisis than any other Senator in Albany.

Interestingly enough, just 3 days before the end of the latest legislative session, in an apparent response to mounting political pressure and criticism from voters, Saland proposed his “School Tax Act”; a confusing and unworkable one-house bill that could never become law. His act appears to be nothing more than election year political posturing.

As was accurately pointed out in a Poughkeepsie Journal LTE by Union Vale resident, Vicky Pittman:

His tax act does not solve the school property tax crisis. It creates a procedural and political process. It requires district-by-district petitioning, debates, school board votes, passage of a ballot and opting into a state-funded system, and then taxes would abate, over five years. Saland says his act provides $9 billion dollars in relief, but he does not say how it will be paid.

Saland's act is not leadership but a perpetuation of the status quo disguised as legislation.

Ultimately, Saland’s proposed legislation would divide the interests of wealthier school districts from poorer ones; residential home-owners from tenants, business owners and farmers; the rich from the poor; and neighbor from neighbor.

In an attempt to stem the rising tide of voter frustration, the Chairman of the Senate Education Committee addressed the residents of Millbrook about school funding on August 21, 2006. What he offered was long on talk and short on solutions.

One of the most interesting moments of the evening was Saland’s admission that, due to skyrocketing real property taxes, his own son could no longer afford to live in Dutchess County.

For years, serious legislation addressing our real property tax crisis has been proposed in Albany only to die in the Senate Education Committee. These proposals, blocked by Saland, deserve a hearing and the opportunity to become law. We need to reform school funding and create a FAIR and EQUITABLE system based on the ability to pay, not the value of your home.

Now, more than ever, it's time for a NEW Team, for a NEW New York.