State reform panel calls for tax cap

CAPITOL — Small school districts such as Fort Plain and Northville could be forced to consolidate with other school systems if a recommendation of a state property tax commission becomes law.

The New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief released its final report at a news conference in Albany on Monday. Among the recommendations are to cap school taxes at a rate of 4 percent with certain exceptions. It would also require state government to reduce the number of mandates, which are services such as special education that districts are required to provide, but for which they often do not receive any additional funding.

It would also require school districts with fewer than 1,000 pupils to consolidate.

Fort Plain in Montgomery County had 911 students, according to its 2006-07 state report. Superintendent Douglas Burton said such consolidation discussions have occurred in the past but have failed because of the issue of “territorialism.”

“Most times, people don’t like losing their identity, even though financially it generally makes sense. I think it’s tied up in tradition and communities are reluctant to let to go of that.”

In the late 1980s, he said the district did a study that would have explored consolidating Fort Plain, St. Johnsville and Canajoharie. However, it failed when it went to a public vote.

Burton said it probably makes more sense to consolidate business operations — for example having multiple districts share a superintendent and business office that would handle accounts receivable and payroll for all of the districts. Some districts have done that and seen a cost savings.

Other districts have been exploring ways to share services. Northville Central School Superintendent Kathy Dougherty said the district, which has 520 students, is in the planning stages for a bus garage to be shared with the village of Northville and the town of Northhampton.

“Why have three bus garages? Why have three sets of mechanics? Why have three entities doing the same work within the space of maybe 10 square miles?”

Also, the Edinburg Common School District, which has about 70 total students, pays tuition to send their grade 7-12 students to Northville.

Dougherty said one issue with trying to consolidate with Edinburg outright is that Edinburg is located in Saratoga County and Northville is in Fulton County. If merged, she said Edinburg would probably pay more in taxes.

In Schenectady County, the Duanesburg Central School District, with 951 enrolled students, according to its 2006-07 report, is the only district with fewer than 1,000 students. Superintendent Christine Crowley could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Gov. David Paterson said the state has nearly 700 school districts, which is less than it used to have, but still “superfluous.”

“Curtailing the number of school districts would be an extreme cost-savings endeavor,” he said.

The commission’s final report came after 10 months of work to address the high property tax costs, which it states are 78 percent higher than the national average.

Other recommendations are to set mandatory minimum amounts that education employees must contribute to their health insurance premiums, allowing districts to pool with others to purchase health care and requiring new employees to contribute to their pensions for a longer period of time. Also, the commission suggests repealing the Wick’s Law, which requires separate bidding of various aspects of construction projects that exceed a certain amount and changing the Triborough Amendment to exclude teacher step raise increases from automatically taking effect until new contracts are negotiated.

One area of particular concern to the commission is special education, where Paterson said New York spends the most and yet is ranked 38th among the states in number of special education students who graduate.

He said the local administrators should be given more flexibility to evaluate the needs of special education students and allow some to be mainstreamed into regular classes.

Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, who served as chairman of the commission, said the growth in general education costs has been about 5 percent to 6 percent a year during the past decade. However, for special education, that figure is 9 percent.

Paterson said high property taxes hurt employment growth in the state. He had proposed a property tax cap in June after the commission’s preliminary report had been released. The GOP-led Senate backed Paterson’s plan but it was not taken up in the Assembly.

Paterson pointed out that under the tax cap proposal, residents of a school district would still have the ability to override the cap.

The commission recommends that the state ease some of the mandates and require the state Comptroller’s Office to provide estimates of how much new laws would cost local governments. Paterson said he agrees that unfunded mandates just shift costs from one entity of government to another.

Suozzi said many of these regulations were created with good intentions to improve schools, but it has now become a “spider web of bureaucracy.”

He said the state Education Department should shift its role from being just a straight regulatory agency to one that set goals for districts and helps those that are falling short of the guidelines.

Dougherty said relief from mandates, which she estimated represent between 5 percent and 10 percent of the budget, would be welcome. At each school board meeting, she does an “unfunded mandate report.” For example, the school must now use “green” cleaning products and screen students for obesity.

“No one would argue these aren’t good things for the school community to be a part of,” she said, adding that most of the time there is little if any money involved to carry out the requirements.

New York State School Boards Association spokesman David Albert said the organization supports a lot of the recommendations, particularly regarding health insurance.

“Health insurance is one of the fastest rising costs for school districts. It’s going up to the tune of about 10 percent a year on average,” he said.

However, the association opposes a tax cap because Albert said it believes it would lead to cuts in programs and services benefitting students.

“We think it’s especially damaging at a time when school districts are going to see deep cuts in state aid.”