Dowling For Dollars

Plan Calls For "Three C's" To Reduce Property Taxes: Consolidation, Capping, And Control

Dowling College Long Island Economic & Social Policy Presents Roadmap for Permanent Property Tax Relief At State Commission On Property Tax Relief

OAKDALE, NY - “It’s time to tear down parochial interests,” said Martin Cantor, Director of the Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute at Dowling College, upon releasing LIESP’s “Three C’s” for permanent property tax relief for New York’s beleaguered homeowners. The plan was presented at the March 5, 2008 hearing of the State Commission on Property Tax Relief.

Cantor said that, “the ‘Three C’s’ call for consolidation of teacher salaries, pension costs and fringe benefits by economic regions financed by the New York State Department of Education, thus cutting homeowner property taxes by nearly 47%; capping the remaining local school budgets to annual increases of the greater of the increase in Consumer Price Index or 3%; and, controlling remaining budgets and classroom educational improvement.” Cantor said, “only the financing of teacher costs will be consolidated, not local control of education and administration, which will remain the responsibility of local school boards.”

The “Three C’s” have other benefits, Cantor said, including “equity to underfunded school districts by leveling the playingfield between wealthy and poor school districts, thus allowing for competition for the best teachers; making housing affordable to young people by lowering the carrying costs from property taxes and stretching household budgets; and, bringing billions of dollars of new economic activity from the saved property taxes to every part of New York State.”

Cantor concluded, “the money to do this is already in the state budget. It makes no sense to have New Yorkers pay an income tax to the state, which once collected, is transferred back to regions in the form of education subsidies and STAR payments, which get absorbed by local school district spending.”
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Check out the website of the NYS Commission on Property Tax Relief for testimony, transcripts, webcasts, and updates