The Rye City school budget vote is coming up on Tuesday, May 19, 2015. As reported in LoHud.com, the Rye City schools are considering a tax cap override. School budgets are capped at a 2.5% increase unless the cap is waived by a 60% vote. Rye, like others, has been making up budget gaps with reserves, a practice that cannot continue.
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Rye, Edgemont schools may try to override property-tax cap
Joseph Spector March 29, 2015
Of the nearly 700 school districts in the state, only 27 have indicated plans to try to override the property-tax cap.
Of the nearly 700 school districts in the state, Rye and Edgemont are among the 27 that have indicated preliminary plans to try to override the property-tax cap in their May budget votes.
Rye school board President Laura Slack said the district has used up much of its reserves to stave off tax increases. But now the district will likely exceed its 2.5 percent tax-cap limit to balance its books.
"As we've been adding reserves in, we have to wean ourselves off of that," Slack said. "While we did that, to be responsive to the community, it creates a hole every time you do it."
The tax cap, which limits the growth in property taxes to about 2 percent, is complicated this year because schools have yet to find out what their state aid will be. Also, Cuomo is tying property-tax rebate programs to the cap…
Schools, though, face a tougher task to breach the tax cap. They need 60 percent of voters in May to go over the cap, while local governments only need 60 percent of their governing board. This year the tax cap for local governments was 1.56 percent.
And voters' appetite to override the cap has soured. In 2012, 44 districts got voter approval to exceed the cap; it was 19 in the current year."
