Archive: Around Town

Mark S. LewisThe Statewide School Finance Consortium Proposal:
All that Glitters is not Gold

For well over two decades, New Yorkers have endured the harangues of countless vocal critics of the existing state funding formulas. In recent years, the voices of discontent with the status quo have become louder, more numerous, and better organized. Opponents of current funding formulas contend that they are politically motivated and channel state tax dollars to more affluent school districts whose taxpayers are better equipped to foot higher property taxes than they do currently.

A grassroots organization, the Statewide School Finance Consortium, has now been formed whose member school districts, in their words, “speak with one voice in joining with overburdened taxpayers throughout Upstate to ask the legislature and the governor to drastically reform the system of financing schools primarily by property taxes.”

According to the organization’s website (www.statewideonline.org), its goal is to achieve “tax fairness via an equitable local contribution.” It would achieve such an “equitable local contribution” by taking school aid from more affluent districts and redistribute it to less affluent ones. Theoretically, this means that more dollars would flow to Upstate schools at the expense of Downstate schools.

Before all Upstate taxpayers blindly jump onto the SSFC bandwagon, however, they should examine the impact of the organization’s proposal on their own wallets. Not all Upstate districts would benefit from the proposal. In fact, a number of districts would see their state aid increases reduced or eliminated entirely. Moreover, an examination of the breakdown of this year’s SSFC school aid proposal reveals that there are Upstate schools whose taxpayers would be burdened with higher property taxes under the SSFC plan than would be the case under the plan being proposed by the New York State Senate.

Our own district, Lansing, serves as a good example. Under the Senate’s plan, school aid to Lansing would increase by over three-quarters of a million dollars ($788,875 to be exact). Under the Statewide School Finance Consortium’s plan, however, Lansing will only receive $485,393, over $300,000 less than what the district would receive if the New York State Senate’s proposal is adopted. The end result of the adoption of the Statewide School Funding Consortium proposal would be a 2.3% increase in taxes for Lansing taxpayers. These funds would, in turn, be given to other “less affluent” school districts to offset their property tax bills. Ithaca taxpayers would face a similar situation. Under the SSFC proposal that district would receive no increase in state aid versus the $5.8 million increase proposed by the state senate. Robin Hood comes to Albany.

I urge all Lansing taxpayers to visit the School Statewide Finance Consortium website (www.statewideonline.org) to learn more about what is being proposed in the name of support for all Upstate school districts. See firsthand how it will affect your property taxes, then let our representatives in Albany know that the SSFC proposal is divisive, damaging, and worst of all, unfair to Lansing taxpayers.


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