Property Tax
Questionnaire Results

Thank you so much for your responses to my newsletter questionnaire on property tax reform. Many people stopped me to talk about the questions I was asking and wanted more information. Others were passionate about their favorite solution. My colleagues all around New York State are having this same discussion with their constituents. We clearly have difficult choices to make, but we need to move on this issue to reduce our tax burden.

Here are the results from the over 450 responses I received to the newsletter questionnaire:

Do you feel that what you pay in property taxes as compared to household income is fair?

80% No, 20% Yes

Do you pay more than 6, 7 or 8% of your household income in property taxes?

78% Yes, 22% No

If so, would the circuit breaker legislation give you more tax relief than you currently receive through the STAR rebate check?

65% Yes, 35% No

Your Ranked Choices for Ways to Reform Property Taxes:

1. The Middle Income Circuit Breaker

2. Funding Schools on Income Tax Instead of Property Tax

3. Consumer Price Index Tax Cap

4. Massachusetts Proposition 2 ½

5. Local Districts Choose Combination of Property and Income Taxes

6. Optional System by School District for State Takeover of Local School Spending

7. School Tax System Currently in Place

Rebate Checks to be Sent in the Fall
$1.23 billion of combined Middle Income STAR and Enhanced STAR rebate checks will be mailed in the fall. This includes a 40% increase in the Enhanced STAR rebate checks for qualifying seniors. If you applied for the STAR rebate last year or received a check, you do not need to reapply. If not, you must apply by 12/31/08 on an application that you will be sent automatically by the end of October. Check this Web site for more information: www.tax.state.ny.us.

Relief for Families Faced with Foreclosures (Chapter 472)
This legislation provides for greater notice of pending foreclosures to homeowners, and more assistance to borrowers. It sets up clearer standards for mortgage lending by enacting a sub-prime lending statute, setting standards and limitations for home loans, requiring registration of loan servicers, establishing the crime of residential mortgage fraud (in order to punish unscrupulous lenders) and regulating distressed property consulting contracts in order to help avoid future problems in the housing loan arena.

The Taxpayer Advocate Law (A11100/S6664-A)
This law provides for an “Office of the Taxpayer Advocate” to be set up in the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, with a position known as the “Taxpayer Advocate” to be appointed by the governor. The taxpayer advocate will assist taxpayers in resolving problems with the department, identify problem areas where taxpayers might have difficulties with the department, propose solutions to these problems, and prepare an annual report of the taxpayer advocate’s activities.

Educators’ Licenses Automatically Revoked When Convicted of Certain Criminal Acts (Chapter 296)
This set of bills would revoke the licenses of educators convicted of sexual offenses and rescind the certification of school administrators and supervisors found guilty of defrauding the government. The bill includes teachers, teaching assistants, school counselors, psychologists, social workers, school administrators or supervisors convicted of offenses requiring registration with the state Sex Offender Registry. Currently, it could take a year or more to get these convicted criminals off the payrolls, at a cost on average of $150,000 per case in legal fees.

Property Tax Exemption Impact Reports to Be Made Available to Citizens at Budget Time (Chapter 258)
All municipalities must prepare and post reports listing property tax exemptions and their impact on municipal budgets at budget time. This makes transparent information that will help people better understand how their municipality’s revenues are impacted by the number and extent of tax exempt properties within their taxing jurisdiction.

Fourth grader Karina Franke, center, and her friend Tess Cronin with Sandy. Karina, a student at the Hendrick Hudson schools in Cortlandt, has been lobbying the state to do everything possible to protect the Karner Blue, an endangered butterfly species. Karina has worked with BOCES to get information about the butterfly into the Science 21 curriculum. Sandy motivated thousands of students statewide to get involved in the democratic process of nominating a butterfly to be the official butterfly of New York.

Alternative Energy Production Incentives Expanded (Chapter 452)
The practice of net-metering, or receiving credit for producing energy that then goes back into the grid of the electricity generator or electric company, will now be extended. This will encourage use of clean, renewable energy to include homeowners, farms, businesses, municipalities, school districts and non-profit organizations to receive credits for energy they produce through solar, wind, farm waste and fuel cell technologies. Currently only residential and agricultural consumers are permitted to sell excess energy back to utility companies.

Preventing Pension System Abuse (A11743/S8699)
In an effort to bring transparency and accountability to the public retirement system and permanently stop waste, fraud and abuse of the state pension system, a bill was passed that would require school districts and Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) to disclose compensation agreements for all administrators, supervisors, attorneys and consultants they employ. The legislation would also create civil and criminal penalties for those who enter into deceptive benefits arrangements and will require all school districts to post their budgets on their Web sites.

Sandy on Assembly floor working hard to convince a colleague to support her bill.

Brownfield Clean-Up (Chapter 390)
This legislation changes the law to clean up polluted sites. Instead of giving tax credit for the entire development and clean up of a contaminated site, this law would emphasize the clean-up portion of a developer’s work for tax credits. Instead of receiving 10-22 percent of the total project’s cost in tax credit, a builder would receive 75 percent of the cleanup, and up to 50 percent of the price of redevelopment, not to exceed $15 million. More sites will be cleaned up with this new law.

Nurses Mandatory Overtime Reduced (Chapter 493)
This law restricts the consecutive hours of required work for nurses to eliminate mandatory overtime and help attract and retain nurses at hospitals and other facilities in the state, in order to provide better, safer care for patients.

Toy Recall Protection (A11316-A/S8297-A)
This legislation protects children by outlawing the sale of recalled toys and other products while mandating that retailers take steps to inform consumers of recalls. The legislation also requires manufacturers of children’s products such as car seats, high chairs, cribs and playpens to provide a product safety card to the purchaser at the time of sale. The bill would also require secondhand dealers of children’s products to provide notification to consumers emphasizing the need to check recall notices before purchasing a product.

Internet Safety Precautions Enacted (Chapter 67)
This legislation sets up a system for electronic security and targeting of online predators. It protects people who use the internet from convicted sex offenders; enables internet entities to prescreen or remove sex offenders from its services; and allows as a sentencing condition the imposition of a reasonable limitation of internet use by sex offenders. Sex offenders must register their internet identifiers with law enforcement, permitting social networking Web sites to access the information and prescreen or remove them from services used by children, and notify law enforcement of potential violations of law.

Coming Down Harder on Domestic and Child Abuse Perpetrators (Chapter 326)
Unmarried victims of domestic violence will now receive protection under the law that would allow them to seek a civil order of protection through the state family court system. This gives victims of domestic abuse an avenue of protection that was not previously available. Amid the growing crisis of dating violence among young people, this is an important step the legislature took to help keep victims safe.

Assembly Passed a Package of Energy Bills to Help Consumers with Rising Gas Prices (A11590/11588/10262-B/11589/907-B)
This package of five energy-related bills is designed to help us better afford to operate our vehicles and heat our homes. A cap on the state gas tax in 2006 did little to reign in costs for consumers, and oil companies continued to rake in record high profits. This new legislation would guard against such an eventuality. It provides for a recapture of lost revenue of over $400 million to the state, and taxes the windfall profits of the major oil companies. Gasoline importers would have to pay a surcharge, but could not pass that surcharge along to consumers at the pump.

Assembly Supports Safer Driving for Teenagers (A11083-A/S8572-A)
This bill raises the number of behind-the-wheel training hours required from 20 to 30, 10 of which must take place at night. It allows the driver with a learner’s permit to carry only one passenger under the age of 21 other than a family member. Currently, two passengers are allowed.

On June 9th I hosted a public forum in Putnam Valley with Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi who offered a proposal from the Commission on Property Tax Relief, which he chairs. We heard from anti-tax groups, supporters of an income-tax based system of taxation, teachers’ union members, school boards, PTAs and business consortiums. Needless to say, the opinions were wide-ranging. We must act swiftly enacting legislation to begin the hard work to fundamentally change NY State’s property tax burden. I generally support the Commission’s preliminary recommendations, which include a property tax cap, a circuit breaker, and reducing or eliminating unfunded mandates. Since the time the commission’s report was released, many polls were conducted which indicated that New Yorkers support the property tax cap as well as the circuit breaker. I would really like to hear from you. For more information on the Commission’s report visit their Web site at cptr.state.ny.us or call 518-486-4238.

Additional comments can be attached to this questionnaire and mailed back to my office.