I attended the Tax Cap rally today (July 29) where Thomas Suozzi, the Nassau County executive who heads the state Commission on Property Tax Relief, and Business Council of New York State Inc. CEO Kenneth Adams spoke along with Maggie Brooks and Sandra Parker.

You can read more about this tax cap proposal and read the full report at:  www.taxcapnow.org

One startling point: 1.2 million people have left NY State since 2000. And that creates an increased tax burden on the remaining population.

Mr. Suozzi repeatedly stated that this “cap”, while not a complete solution, was a first step to slowing the property tax increase.

Thomas Golisano made a presentation against this cap proposal. In his opinion, it will not address the problem. He believes that the 4% ceiling is far too high to be effective. See my Post below: “Tax Cap Meaningless” that agrees with much of Mr. Golisano’s position.

I briefly spoke with Mr. Suozzi after the presentation and expressed my concern that increasing the NY State Aid to Education simply shifts the tax burden from property tax to income tax.

He asked me what will happen to local school taxes IF NYS Aid drastically falls next year because NYS does not have any money? Our local property tax burden would obviously SKY-ROCKET. He stated that is one of the reasons why this tax cap proposal needs to be implemented.

In a previous Post, I reported a USAToday article from the US Census Bureau that put Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse in the top 10 cities losing population from 2000 to 2007.

The Rochester Business Journal, July 11, 2008, covered the Census Bureau data in more detail.  The data shows that the Monroe County TOWNS losing population around Rochester include BRIGHTON (-3.5%), Irondequoit (-4.5%), Gates, Greece and Perinton.

The towns gaining population include Webster (+8.9%), Pittsford (+3.9%), and Penfield (+2.5%).

While Brighton does not have the vacant land for building, and therefore the ability to add significant population, it should not be shrinking.

For over 25 years, I have heard (the myth?) that Brighton is one of the most desireable suburbs because of the school district.  Now, we are LOSING population.  What does this imply?  Is the Brighton School District no longer perceived as being significantly better than Webster, Pittsford or Penfield?

USAToday, July 17, 2008, published an editorial titled “Teacher protection racket.” The editorial stated that in New York City, 8 teachers were fired for incompetence in 2006-07. That’s one tenth of one percent of the 55,000 NYC public school teachers.

The cost to get rid of each of these teachers was $225,000 and required 150 hours of principal time. That’s why most NY State school districts (including those in Monroe County) don’t even bother to eliminate incompetent teachers.

In Chicago, only 3 out of every 1,000 teachers received an unsatisfactory rating. 90% got top ratings! Yet Chicago is one of the most troubled urban districts.

Why does this situation exist? Largely because of the power of teacher’s unions.

Per the editorial: “Unions have to realize that educating kids is more important than protecting inept members.”

You can read the full editorial at:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/our-view-on-edu.html

How does this editorial relate to Brighton? We certainly have an excellent school district.  And I’m sure the majority of our teachers are excellent.  But:

• It would be interesting to know the statistics related to our teacher evaluations.
• It would be interesting to know if Brighton has ever fired an incompetent teacher.

Our teacher salaries and benefits certainly are competitive with any other school district.  Are we getting the best teachers and eliminating those that are not competent?

And the next time you hear that the Teacher Union is ONLY concerned “about the kids”, read this USAToday editorial.

The “tax cap” currently being discussed by our dysfunctional NYS Legislators is a scam on NYS taxpayers. Here are four reasons:

1. It is NOT a cap.

2. It reflects property taxes - NOT school budgets.

3. The higher NYS Aid to Education, the more the local property tax burden can be reduced.

4. 55% of the school budget voters can override the 4% property tax increase.

Let’s look at each reason in more detail.

1. NOT A CAP: The proposal recommends a 4% property tax INCREASE PER YEAR. A legitimate “property tax cap” would be based on a percentage of property assessed value. With this proposal, your property tax can continue to increase at a very healthly 4% compounded annually. In five years, a 4% annual increase results in a 21.6% increase!

2. NO SCHOOL BUDGET CONTROL: This proposal does not control school budget increases. School budgets can increase based on NYS Aid To Education while the property tax increase is held to 4%. See #3.

3. NYS AID TO EDUCATION: School budgets reflect a SPENDING plan. Revenue to support the spending plan is derived from:

• Sales Tax
• Investment Income
• Rentals
• Other Income
• Fund Balance
• and the BIGGY….NYS Aid To Education

Then, subtracting all of the above items results in a balance that must be paid by the Property Tax Levy.

Therefore, the more NYS Aid To Education, the less the Property Tax Levy.

The problem: YOU pay for NYS Aid To Education through your NYS income tax.

Legislators often state they will only support the “cap” IF Aid To Education is maintained or increased. So your NYS income tax goes UP while your local property tax may hold at a 4% annual increase.

By the way, NYS Aid to Brighton INCREASED 12.2% in 2008/09 and 17.4% in 2007/08. HUGE increases that held down the property tax increase.

4. 55% VOTER OVERRIDE: During the last Monroe County school budget voting, only one district had less than 55% of the voters approve their budgets. And that one district was at 54%.

This proposed 4% “cap” is a “feel-good” idea that will have little, if any effect on putting a damper on your total NYS tax burden.

Per USAToday, July 10, 2008 (Page 2A), the top 10 cities with more than 100,000 residents LOSING population from 2000 to 2007 are:

• Cleveland, OH
• Flint, MI
• Pittsburgh
• Buffalo (down 6.8%)
• Dayton, OH
• Hialeah, FL
• Toledo, OH
• Rochester, NY (down 5.9%)
  
• Birmingham, AL
• Syracuse, NY (down 5.0%)

Do you think that property taxes played a significant role? Job losses are a casualty of high taxes and when the jobs leave…the people move. Retirees move to locations with lower taxes.

A more hidden effect of this propulation loss is that the people who are leaving are those with OPTIONS. They tend to be residents with skills, education and financial means.

Another effect is that these people paid taxes…property, income and sales taxes. With 5.9% of the Rochester population gone, the governmental and school tax burden does NOT go down. It is simply re-distributed to those of us that are STILL HERE!

Three western NY cities with top 10 population loss? Not a good sign for our economic future!

Did you ever wonder how our $16,000 per-student public school education system is doing as compared to the rest of the industrialized world?

The scores from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment showed that U.S. 15-year-olds trailed their peers from many industrialized countries. The average science score of U.S. students lagged behind those in 16 of 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that represents the world’s richest countries. The U.S. students were further behind in math, trailing counterparts in 23 countries.

The PISA test, given every three years, measures the ability of 15-year-olds to apply math and science knowledge in real-life contexts. About 400,000 students, including 5,600 in the United States, took the 2006 exam.

On the science portion, U.S. students, most of them 10th-graders, received an average score of 489 on a 1,000-point scale, 11 points below the average of the 30 countries. Canada, Japan and Korea were among the countries in which students outperformed U.S. counterparts.

In math, only four countries had average scores lower than the United States. Students in 23 countries had a higher average score, and those in two countries did about the same as the Americans.

Did Brighton 10th graders take this test? If they did, how did they do?

For more information on this testing, click on: http://www.pisa.oecd.org