Finances
The past two years have proved difficult for our district. With the reductions in State Aid to our district we have had to eliminate may positions in the past two years. This year was no exception as to our rural district in Wyoming country was cut over $1900 per student, the highest cut in the entire state. With about 70% our revenue coming from the State this past year we were cut back $1.4 million dollars nearly 10% from prior year. Our building principals and department heads were all forced to dig deep, cut back and make reorganizational recommendations. With declining enrollment along with a financial obligation to contain local costs on behalf of our taxpayers the district made decisions to cut back on personnel. This is painful and hard for me to accept as people's lives are being impacted. The administration is confident we have maintained our programs. We have over 1550 enrolled and cut 10 positions. Other districts cut more. The health of our reserves and appropriate long term planning is helping us. We proposed a budget $493,000 under a contingency budget that the NY State Formula would have allowed us to enforce saving taxpayers over 5%. Beyond people we have done things like delaying the replacement of a dump truck, and discontinued late transportation. Personally Mr. Beaver and I lobbied in Albany for our district last year and this year I personally appealed to the Lieutenant Governor to help restore equity in aid cuts across the state as per my attached letter. While we only received $83,000 back this year this is an effort that I will personally continue to build upon and address annually. As a member of the audit/finance committee you have my word I will continue to fight on your behalf.
Click here to read the letter I sent to Lt. Governor Bob Duffy.
Cost Reduction
This letter I wrote to the Lieutenant Governor outlined over $800,000 in cost reduction efforts taken at the local level. Is it enough? NO! I personally have been trying to focus our central administration on areas of cost reduction other than personnel cuts and have been frustrated at the slow progress in this area. I will continue to press these areas and in fact in our goal setting sessions we reestablished a renewed focus in this area. A cost reduction team with be formed and better utilization of the Sheldon building resource is again a key goal. I am confident these efforts can save significant dollars in the future. I welcome any new members from the community to join the board as long as there is a positive attitude to assist in this area. Beyond the board we have a PR committee who has examined financial data, and the cost reduction committee can contain community members as well. It is critical we work as a team positively and in harmony with each other. All of our audit/finance committee meetings are open to the public as dictated by state law.
Taxes
It is important to recognize that despite astounding increases in State mandated expenses such as to the retirement system, to health care costs, fuel for buses, etc we have maintained a very flat school tax burden on our community. This is one of the lowest in the area. While our local tax levy next year is $9.4 million which will be up 2% over last year, our estimate is that the NYS school tax relief STAR program will contribute $1.9 million dollars to that burden, relieving our local taxpayers of that cost. As a result the local community will burden only the difference of $7.5 million or 27.7% of our budget. In examining my own tax bills for the last 3 years, I find that my school taxes increased 1.1% over three years well below the Consumer price index of 1.92% for this past year ALONE. My town taxes increased 2.6%, Medicaid 4.9% and county tax a whopping 30.3%. Those that attack the school for increasing taxes appear to be going after the wrong entity. I personally have no issue funding education for our kids. I contracted Randy Ford of Attica along with a team of local subcontractors he and I selected to build my home here in the Village of Attica. My real property tax data is imported in the chart below. By investing in real property in this area with a value significantly higher than the average our family and others like ours has in essence reduced the real property burden on the lower income taxpayers in Attica. My investigation of average taxes in our district reveals that my taxes are 2 to 2.5 times greater than the average tax bill in our district. Based on my personal situation I am OK with this. We need to keep our school attractive to families so they stay and or come into in our district. I honestly want to serve on behalf of the next generation. Other than the school the village has done a good job and holding taxes flat. It would be nice if the local governments could work together to reduce the non school portion of our tax bills.
Tax Exemptions for Senior Citizens
Are you maximizing your school property tax exemptions to lower your tax bill? Note some SENIOR CITIZENS may be eligible to PAY NO SCHOOL TAX WHATSOEVER through a combination of the Enhanced Star program along with the low income senior citizen property tax exemption. It is entirely possible for a senior in our district whose home has an assessed value over $100,000 true value to pay no school taxes whatsoever! If you are a senior and not aware of each of these two exemptions contact your town assessor for more information.
Beyond our seniors, all taxpayers whose income is under $500,000 per year are entitled a " basic" exemption from school taxes equal to $30,000 of the full true value of their property. Make sure you take advantage. Understand it is NYS paying the difference, not our local taxpayers. Some may argue that we pay state taxes as well so what is the difference? It's a huge difference as our rural average incomes and resulting state income taxes are much lower than the statewide average. Did you know that approximately 40% of all income taxes in NYS come from the incomes of the folks working on Wall Street alone?
A final word to the folks in Bennington and towns that pay a higher school tax rate per thousand in assessed value than those in the Town of Attica. Please be assured that school has no control over the value of your assessment and the resulting equalization rate that is applied to increase your school tax rate. The NYS Office of Real Property Services sets these rates. They have determined via home sale values vs. assessed values that the properties in Attica are assessed at 100% of true value while those in Bennington for example are assessed at approximately 50% of their true value. So if in Attica the tax rate is around $17 per thousand, it will be double that in Bennington. What this means is that if you were to sell your home in Bennington you should yield about double the assessed value. If you believe your equalization rate or assessment is not fair, you do have recourse and can pursue a local appeal in your town on your assessment and your town can appeal the equalization rate on behalf of yourself and others with the NYS office of real property tax services.