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One possibility that might help believe it or not is Obamacare. In 2018 the huge tax on Cadillac plans starts. Hopefully they will no longer be sold by the insurance companies so that will force the ending of the outrageous health benefits the unions get. They will actually have to deal with average plans as most plans will just become the less generous exchange plans. The unions might have shot themselves in the foot this time by heavily backing Obamacare. Right now, they seem to be the possible losers in the deal.
Of course the towns/county could just take the 6K per worker penalty and forego providing health insurance all together. That in and of itself would save billions and instantly make LI affordable tax wise.
Actually, Obama exempted the unions from the 40% excise tax you're referring to. After all, he's from Chicago and if there's one place as bad or worse than LI/NYS, it's Cook County, Illinois. But I digress… Unions and their rank and file can stock up on those golden health benefits and not worry about any new taxes. You and I are not so lucky.
NYC has 1.1 million students in an area under 500 sq miles; Suffolk 250, 000 in an area almost 2,400 sq miles.
Even Rhode Island, half the size of Suffolk County, has 32 school districts plus 4 regional districts, despite this, the highest earnings in these school districts is no where near what we're paying.
One would believe, given what we pay, that we are graduating Rhodes Scholars; but truth is each year we have program cuts in order to keep up with contractual increases, increased healthcare costs, and pension obligations as well as pension shortfalls.
I agree.
Magically consolidating (county wide) school districts will cut costs...a bit. Magically reducing and freezing (forever) all school district employee pay by 10% will cut costs...a bit. Magically cutting all special education, busing, non-essential classes, etc will cut costs...a bit. None of these is going to happen (for a million reasons) and even if all three or just one happened the savings in annual homeowner property taxes would be negligible. Whether or not similar cuts were instituted on our local town portion of the property tax bill.
Here is my plan for real, substantial, and sustained property tax reductions:
Magically and immediately eliminating all pension disbursements and all medical benefits and then magically slashing (and freezing forever) all employee pay 25% is Step 1 . Step 2 is eliminating (forever) 25% of the workforce by magically consolidating all LI school districts and simultaneously (and forever) cutting all special education, full day kindergarten, phys ed, electives (including AP), sports, clubs, foreign languages, fine arts, and all buses. Step 3 is selling off and returning to the tax rolls all under-utilized properties resulting from Step 2 and declining enrollment. These 3 steps would bring taxes down to an affordable level for some... provided similar cuts were instituted on our local town portion of the property tax bill.
The above is not going to happen (for a million reasons).
Illusory steps like the new teacher evaluations, 2% tax cap, increases in employee medical contributions, temporary teacher pay freezes (w or w/o /steps), limited sales of school district property, Tier V and VI pension reforms, etc have done absolutely nothing to reduce (or even prevent the growth of) residential property taxes. Notwithstanding cuts or lack thereof on the local town portion of the property tax bill.
Reality, math, and the inexorable nature of taxation indicates our property taxes will continue to rise.
(There is not and never has been a direct relationship between high property taxes and the quality of education...even school districts do not make that claim. High residential property taxes are much more of a function of our method of financing education here in NY, costs (including but not limited to contractual increases, increased healthcare costs, and pension obligations as well as pension shortfalls), and the local commercial tax base ...but that is another issue for another day)
Make Nassau have 1 unified school district and Suffolk have 1 unified school district too. Enough with all this village/town/city crap too. It should be 2 counties comprised of a couple hundred neighborhoods and that's it. It sounds cute on paper, but that's why you guys pay so much in taxes. One school district, one fire department, one police department, etc.
The poster said "Make Nassau have 1 unified school district and Suffolk have 1 unified school district too" . He was proposing only 2 school districts 1 for each county not "cutting down on the number". It does work we have county wide school districts and it works fine.
Is your 4k in taxes for property tax only or both property & school taxes?
Yes, I am aware the poster said one for each county, I'm just expanding on the idea. I think one for each county is a bit small (Suffolk is pretty big and I think 3 would suffice them (Western, Central, Eastern), Nassau could get away with 2 (North and South)
Yes, 4k is everything. That is after STAR. Before STAR its just under 5k. It might also help that we have solar panels on our house, but yes those are my taxes. We did our shopping around for the best property with high price/low taxes or low price/high taxes. If you go out further east, which we weren't considering, there's properties with 2k in taxes. But that means living in Riverhead, which was a too far for us.
Yes, I am aware the poster said one for each county, I'm just expanding on the idea. I think one for each county is a bit small (Suffolk is pretty big and I think 3 would suffice them (Western, Central, Eastern), Nassau could get away with 2 (North and South)
Yes, 4k is everything. That is after STAR. Before STAR its just under 5k. It might also help that we have solar panels on our house, but yes those are my taxes. We did our shopping around for the best property with high price/low taxes or low price/high taxes. If you go out further east, which we weren't considering, there's properties with 2k in taxes. But that means living in Riverhead, which was a too far for us.
The one question for you is, Did you want to live in Suffolk as opposed to Nassau? or Would you have lived in Nassau, if it were not for the taxes and home prices? Reason for asking is that if you would have lived in Nassau, which I don't know if you wanted to or not, once again, you could not look at where you may have wanted to live due to the high taxes and home costs. Perhaps this is not you but I know many that were forced to go further out to afford a home. Once again, bitten by the high costs.
Wrong wrong and wrong! First off NYS, Nassau and Suffolk are not and will never file for bankruptcy. Second NYS pension system is in great shape have you been following Detroit bankruptcy? Even there the courts are siding with the pensioners and now they're going after the banks. imagine in NYS where it's written in the charter and is so pro-union . ... What your implying might work in some mismanaged,corrupt small township but not in Nassau, Suffolk or the whole State. No way Jose.....
Uh mike the federal courts are not on the Detroit pensioners side. They ruled that declaring bankruptcy supersedes state law (including a state constitutional pension guarantee like michigan and NY have). It's not over yet and of course they have appealed. But scary stuff nonetheless....
The one question for you is, Did you want to live in Suffolk as opposed to Nassau? or Would you have lived in Nassau, if it were not for the taxes and home prices? Reason for asking is that if you would have lived in Nassau, which I don't know if you wanted to or not, once again, you could not look at where you may have wanted to live due to the high taxes and home costs. Perhaps this is not you but I know many that were forced to go further out to afford a home. Once again, bitten by the high costs.
We actually wanted to stay in Suffolk, since we both work in Suffolk (I work in Melville, he's in Hauppauge). I am originally from Nassau, but I am not a fan of the crowdedness.
We lived in East Northport a little bit and that was our ideal area, but again, taxes and the price of houses forced us to look more east. We looked everywhere (Copiague, Lindenhurst, Deer Park, Babylon, West Babylon, Commack, Huntington, Ronkonkoma, Lake Ronkonkoma), but the biggest problem we ran into were the taxes were high for us.
We do like where we live, we're pretty Central to everything in Suffolk, but if we could've gotten a similar property a little bit more west, we wouldn't have complained.
NYC has 1.1 million students in an area under 500 sq miles; Suffolk 250, 000 in an area almost 2,400 sq miles.
Even Rhode Island, half the size of Suffolk County, has 32 school districts plus 4 regional districts, despite this, the highest earnings in these school districts is no where near what we're paying.
One would believe, given what we pay, that we are graduating Rhodes Scholars; but truth is each year we have program cuts in order to keep up with contractual increases, increased healthcare costs, and pension obligations as well as pension shortfalls.
Rhode Island is a state made up of different counties. Why does 1 county in the state of New York need so many districts???
56 districts on that list. Each one has a superintendent making upwards of $200K. $200K x 56 = move to North Carolina.
So that's my support. NYC has 1.1 million students with only one chancellor. I don't understand why you bring up the square miles for, that means nothing.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
Yes, I am aware the poster said one for each county, I'm just expanding on the idea. I think one for each county is a bit small (Suffolk is pretty big and I think 3 would suffice them (Western, Central, Eastern), Nassau could get away with 2 (North and South)
Yes, 4k is everything. That is after STAR. Before STAR its just under 5k. It might also help that we have solar panels on our house, but yes those are my taxes. We did our shopping around for the best property with high price/low taxes or low price/high taxes. If you go out further east, which we weren't considering, there's properties with 2k in taxes. But that means living in Riverhead, which was a too far for us.
You can have zones within the 1 county school district, like the areas you mentioned and even allow for open enrollment similar to the Minnesota and Wisconsin model, which allows for the tax money to follow the student. Under that open enrollment system, the student is responsible for transportation and can go to another school if there is space within that school. This could occur within the zone the student lives in as well. You will have to cut some positions at the top and given that school taxes make up a larger portion of the overall property tax burden, it could help decrease the tax burden on residents. This should be done with all counties in the state, with highly populated counties having zones.
Last edited by ckhthankgod; 02-18-2014 at 08:20 AM..
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. ... What your implying might work in some mismanaged,corrupt small township but not in Nassau, Suffolk or the whole State. No way Jose.....
