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Still waiting for your school tax rebate check from Albany?  You are not alone.  Despite Governor Andrew Cuomo's promise that rebate checks would be delivered by the end of 2014, the checks have not yet arrived in Lansing.  Tompkins County Director of Assessment Jay Franklin says that officials in Albany claim the state is printing checks every day and sending them to the Comptroller for verification.

"The new deadline to receive them is February 28," Franklin says. "Not December 21 and not December 31, which were the prior two deadlines. I actually called the number they give out and it was not all that helpful, other than, 'yes you are going to get a rebate check and please wait until after February 28 to complain that you didn't get one.'"

Taxpayers in school districts that stayed below the so-called 2% tax cap and met other requirements were promised a check reflecting the difference between what they paid in school taxes last year and and this year in districts where the school tax rose.  The rebate checks were Cuomo's carrot and stick -- if districts adhered to the State's cap their taxpayers would be rewarded.  Albany promised about 4,500 checks woth a total of $1.6 million would be mailed to qualified Tompkins County residents before the end of last year.  That included all Tompkins County school districts except the City Of Ithaca School District, the only school district in the county that failed to comply with the tax cap restriction this year.

Last year the Lansing Town Council met with the Board of Education about qualifying town and school taxpayers for a rebate in 2015.  This year the requirements have changed to include detailed documentation proving that shared services save 1% of their budgets in addition to tax cap and taxpayer qualifications.  While town officials agreed to help the school district make their case, the Town Board decided that the verification process required by the State amounted to an unfunded mandate that would cost more taxpayer dollars than the value of the rebates.  So Lansing taxpayers may expect a rebate on school taxes again this year, assuming the School Board conforms with the tax cap and other requirements, but not on the Town tax bill.

Realistically, neither check would amount to a lot, although the school tax rebate would be relatively much higher.  Additionally, Citizen Action of New York concluded that the rebates favor downstate suburban school taxpayers nearly three to one over upstate property owners.  The analysis claims the average homeowner in the downstate suburbs would receive $324 freeze check while upstate average rebates would range from $96 in the Mohawk Valley to $132 in the Finger Lakes.  The report estimates the average Tompkins County property taxpayer will receive about $189, the highest in the Souther Tier Region. The lowest in the region is Tioga county, which the study estimates will yield checks averaging $54.  Even though Tompkins County falls in the high range of upstate rebates the checks amount to only a small fraction of high tax rates.

"As we continue to take a closer look at this proposal it becomes ever more apparent that the 'freeze' provides upstate homeowners with no meaningful property tax relief while at the same time ensuring the services they depend on at the local level continue to be stretched to the breaking point," the Citizen Action of New York report concludes.  "The property tax freeze may make for a great political sound bite but it is not sound policy for Upstate New York."

But a penny saved is a penny earned... Franklin says that he has heard that qualified Tioga County taxpayers have received their checks, so he says he is cautiously hopeful that the checks will be in the mail for Tompkins County taxpayers soon.

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