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New York State has instituted a rebate to property taxpayers that theoretically makes up for the difference between last year's school tax and this year's.  But the plan is complicated and requires local taxing authorities to not only keep below the so-called 2% tax cap, but to document and meet other requirements.  At a joint Town Board and Board of Education meeting Wednesday, former lansing Town Councilwoman Connie Wilcox told the Town Board that the Town could end up spending more to qualify its taxpayers for the checks than the rebate is worth.

"To me it makes no sense to put the time, effort and resources into coming up with these figures when you look at what the possible payback to taxpayers will be," Wilcox said.  "The majority of people in this town would rather see town resources put to better use than to deal with this ridiculousness that will probably not net the taxpayer a significant amount.  I urge you to follow suit with the Village of Lansing and the City of Ithaca, and not move forward with this futile exercise."

As it turned out Town and School officials had come to the same conclusion, though the two are acting on their conclusions differently.  Town Supervisor Kathy Miller said that her board had decided not to do the work to qualify for what would amount to minuscule rebates that wouldn't begin to make up for taxpayer monies spent qualifying for the checks.  But School Superintendent Chris Pettograsso said the school district would go along with what amounts to another unfunded mandate.


"We agree completely, and struggle with that," said School Superintendent Chris Pettograsso.  "But do feel that we need to follow our due diligence in making sure we are doing what we can to share services.  We conduct an exit survey at budget vote time, and a number of our voters said the reason they said yes to the budget was because of the freeze and the rebate checks.  We understand these are hard times, so we're going to continue to push forward with shared services."

In its first year the school district was required to stay below the tax cap in order for eligible school taxpayers to qualify for a check.  Next year the Town and Schools will have to do that plus show at least 1% of the levy in savings due to cooperative services.  But officials are still unclear on wh receives credit for which services.  And all agreed that the rebates, even for school taxpayers, are negligible.


Miller noted that the program costs state taxpayers as well, both in determining who qualifies, printing and sending the checks, and in new people hired for the purpose of explaining complicated rules to local officials.  Miller said it would not be worth it for the Town.

"I don't think our board is looking to do that," she said.  "But our rebate would be very tiny in comparison to the school's.  If we can help you in any way we will.  And quite frankly, if we were to look at these shared services you gain more than we do, so it will mean more to you than it would to us, going forward."

In order to qualify the school district will have to show that it has saved 1% of the property tax levy in shared services.  That amounts to between $170,000 and $200,000.  Pettograsso said that school savings by replacing in-house services with those provided by BOCES has yielded significant savings, including services such as district treasurer and tax collection.  She also noted the schools share their facilities with the Town Recreation Department, and the Highway Department provides paving and ball field maintenance services to the schools.   Pettograsso said Lansing is also considering sharing bussing services with Dryden.

"We already play well together in the sandbox," said Councilman Ed LaVigne.  "We share stuff.  We already have goodness here, and you can't legislate cooperation with a token check.  I would love for this board to say no and send Albany that message."

The school Athletics Department has long shared resources with the Town Recreation Department, coordinating programs including soccer and band camps.  The Rec Department picked up the slack and offered cheerleading a few years ago when the schools had to drop it because of the budget crunch.  Town swims take place in the school pool.  The Town highway Department regular provides services like maintaining school ballfields and paving roads and parking lots on the school campus.  That only touches the surface of a long history of sharing services.

"How do we rally around Albany not giving us any unfunded mandates?" LaVigne asked.  "How about asking people who run for election how they feel about unfunded mandates?  Maybe that should be a huge campaign issue."

Pettograsso noted her district's advocacy team is one of the strongest in the region.  She noted that School Board members Tony Lombardo and Karen McGreevey have accompanied her to Albany to lobby for the district.

"We have two strong messages right now," she told LaVigne.  "One is to end the GEA, the reduction of the money the state has given us over the years.  Our biggest one is to either stop giving us unfunded mandates or start funding them.  if that happened we would not be having this conversation.  Last year alone we had unfunded mandates that cost up about $650,000."

Local officials complained that they could only go back to July 2012 to show savings, when significant collaborative efforts were begun in Lansing before then.  School Board President Glenn Swanson noted that the legislation has the effect of punishing communities that have cooperated all along by forcing them to spend limited money and resources documenting shared services that have saved money.

"In a lot of ways this legislation is trying to encourage people to cooperate like we have for many years," he said.  "We have a great relationship with the Parks and recreation and Highway Departments that is really focussed on providing the public the most for the least amount of money.  There are other opportunities regardless of the legislation."

Miller said the State is going too far, and that may result in communities losing essential services or services they really want.

"It's one thing to use shared services and consolidate things," she said.  "It's another thing to lose because of this, to try and bring your budget down 1%... you certainly don't want to lose services and lose more teachers and offerings in trying to do this."

The school has asked that a Town Board member join its budget committee and other committees, and school officials have agreed to join a new town committee to develop an emergency preparedness plan.  Both boards agreed to continue finding ways to help each other, regardless of tax rebates or state mandates.

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