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PV Town Board Can Certainly Impact School Taxes
To the Editor:
In the past couple of weeks there have been two ads placed in the Pennysaver that have caught my attention. Both of which, either in whole or in part, raised the issue of the property tax method of financing education. The most recent letter/ad placed was signed by Marie Zarcone, a Putnam Valley School Board Trustee. In her letter Mrs. Zarcone made the following statement:
“I attended a League of Women’s Voter Forum concerning Republican and Democratic candidates running for the Town Board. One of the issues which kept coming to the foreground in the questions asked concerned the issue of high taxes (especially school taxes). As a duly elected School Board Trustee I want to emphatically state that our Town Board (present or future) will have no impact on school taxes.”
Her comments brought me up-short. A town board can in fact impact school property taxes, and in a most direct way. It is town government that devises master plans and sets the parameters for what type and scale of development will occur within its jurisdiction. If the housing stock in a community grows, it stands to reason new families move in introducing additional children into the school district hence an increase in school taxes. Putnam Valley is not exempt from this reality. Secondly, a town board can be politically proactive in this regard, aside from enacting laws and codes that limit development, they can pass resolutions in support of state laws that call for the repel of the property tax. This is but one way to galvanize support on the local level and at the same time to demonstrate to Albany the need for ending the real property tax method of funding
education. There should be no reason why a proactive town board couldn’t lobby their colleagues in neighboring towns and in the county legislature to pass similar resolutions in effect creating a groundswell of opposition. When I was the publisher of the now defunct Nimham Times Magazine I ran a 12 page special on financing education in my October 2001 issue. After reading the report, our County Legislator Sam Oliverio attempted to get the legislature to “memorialize” S164 and AO8069, the state bills that call for the repel of the property tax. Perhaps it’s time to renew that effort, not only on the county level, but also locally. Our town boards need to utilize the power they have to impact school taxes.
John Soto Putnam Valley
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