Petition to Oppose NY Tax Cap Legislation

We are New York State voters and taxpayers who believe that tax cap legislation introduced as Senate S2706 and Assembly A7916 would dangerously interfere with community control of public education by imposing draconian limits on the amount of revenue a community can raise through property tax levies.

Proposed tax cap legislation would:

-allow 40\% of the voters to block a school districts proposed tax levy increase if it is greater than the cap;
- not appropriately exclude unfunded state mandated costs such as pension and health plan contributions, enrollment increases, payments related to assessment reductions and other rapidly rising costs; and
-set the cap as the LOWER of 2\% or the rate of inflation, and impose a tax levy freeze in the absence of community approval, creating a squeeze if there is high inflation.

We urge you to reject this tax cap legislation in the interest of protecting communities from unreasonable and destructive State imposed rules. The tax cap proposals in Albany would do nothing to introduce relief from burdensome state mandates and most definitely would leave our students with reduced educational opportunities. New York already has a tax cap that democratically limits school expenditures, an annual school budget vote in each community across the State with contingency rules imposed in the absence of community support.