The rest of the state seems to have all kinds of ideas for capping property taxes. One would give school districts in the rest of the state (but presumably not in New York City) the ability to force the state to pay for their education costs, no matter how high. City residents, would have to pay, but would get nothing. Another would have the state pick up the retiree costs for all teachers. New York City would pay far more in state taxes than it would get in state help, because years of under-funding, fewer teachers and lower pay mean it would have less in retiree costs to pick up. Some want to limit the increase in taxes each year for all school districts. This will ensure the New York City’s lower spending, staffing and teacher pay, relative to the rest of the metropolitan area, will be locked in. Or, if the city is allowed to use local income taxes to increase school spending, the state would presumably raise state income taxes, which city residents also has to pay, to increase school spending in parts of the state subject to a cap. Speaking of the local income tax, Governor Spitzer’s idea, implied by his latest budget, is to have the state pick up more and more of the cost of education in the rest of the state through STAR property tax relief while cutting state aid to the city by gradually eliminating STAR income tax relief.
Mayor Bloomberg is absolutely right. By telling the rest of the state they deserve lower taxes without insisting that the rest of the state spend less money, and not even considering the tax burden in New York City (which is more tilted toward income taxes), virtually every proposal being consider would work to the detriment of the people of the City of New York, and attempt to roll back any improvement in the city’s own schools.
What all these proposals have in common is that like New York City’s tax burden, the current level of school spending outside the city, no matter how extravagant and wasteful, is not up for discussion. If anyone would be required to cut back, it is the same school district that has always been required to cut back, the City of New York. Indeed a modest reduction in school spending is already in the works for New York City; expect far more significant reductions to follow if the recession intensifies and the city is once again singled out for education funding cuts at the state level, as it was in the last two recessions. And the state has cut capital aid to the city, despite the fact that many of the city’s children are educated in trailers, and the city’s high school capacity virtually requires a 50 percent dropout rate. How many school districts elsewhere in the state have children learning in trailers? How many will have so few seats in high school that they need to push out half the kids before graduation? Would this be tolerated anywhere else?
Simply put, just as there is a level of school spending per child that is unreasonably low, there is a level of school spending per child that is unreasonably high. Parents can always purchase luxury-class amenities on their own. There is no excuse to tax those who have been given less to provide others with more, yet that is what the state has done. No wonder everyone votes for the school budget. The more they spend, the more they get, and New York City loses. And while there is constant demand for “accountability” from the city’s schools, elsewhere there is no accountability at all.
I believe a soft “maximum” level of school spending per child (adjusted for the cost of living) should be set at 25% above the estimated national average (the most recent year of data adjusted upward for inflation to the current year). Below that level of spending, a vote on the school budget would not be required. But a dollar of state tax relief aid would be taken away foe each dollar of spending above the maximum, and school district voters would be told exactly why their community was voting on the school budget and the one next door was not. School districts would spend as much as they wanted, but it would cost $2 in taxes for every $1 increase in expenditures. (Or, if high spending districts gradually reduced expenditures, they would save $2 in tax for every $1 in spending reduced). Rewarding school districts outside the city for efficiency is the opposite of the policy right now.
How many districts would be affected? Not the City of New York. It’s excess spending is on senior citizens through pensions, Medicaid, and interest on the debts they ran up, not public schools. But taken together school districts in the Downstate Suburbs spent 32 percent more than the national average per child, adjusted for the cost of living, in 2005, while those in Upstate New York spent 36 more than average. So many school districts, perhaps the majority, would be forced to find efficiencies. It’s about time.
This has nothing to do with universal pre-kindergarten expansion, something Sheldon Silver brought up. I’m talking about spending per child, not spending overall. What about the spending requirements of districts with concentrations of students with special needs? Well the district with the most such students, the City of New York, has spent less than everyone else for years. We might as well forget about the claims of such children, because they don’t count in Albany. If they are not specifically targeted for harm, that is the best that can be expected.
How about taxes? My solution is discussed in detail here.
The problem for homeowners is that small homes have values assessed for property taxes based on comparable sales, not on the income of their residents. Commercial properties, in contrast, are assessed base on their net operating income. In theory, the sales price of small homes is constrained by the income of the buyers, while the value of income producing property determines its sales price. In theory, therefore, whether income or comparable sales is used as the basis of valuation should not matter much. In practice, homeowners can be adversely affected for one of three reasons.
First, if an area becomes more affluent, existing residents who are less wealthy can see their tax burden rise to a level affordable to newcomers but not themselves. Second, when there is a housing bubble property taxes can temporarily spike relative to everyone’s income, along with the price of the homes. A commercial property price bubble does not lead to such tax increases, because valuation is based on actual rents and vacancies. Third, people generally have lower incomes in retirement, which can make the property taxes on a large house hard to carry.
I have less sympathy than most on the third point. Responsible people pay off their houses and do not have a mortgage in old age. Senior citizens generally do not have young children, and thus have fewer people per household. They are free to move to smaller housing units that cost less in property taxes and otherwise. Indeed, the New York City policy of favoring small homes would appear to favor me, but only for a while. Were I to move to a 2-bedroom apartment from my rowhouse when my children leave, my monthly housing costs might actually rise as a result of higher taxes. Thus, the city is bribing me to stay in our current home and keep out a young family with children, even though just 1/3 of the city’s housing units have three or more bedrooms compared with 2/3 nationally. Elsewhere, one wonders about the problems of “poor” people living in expensive houses. Places like Levittown, where the lack of affluent people, big houses and commercial property mean a high burden for all, are of course a different matter.
Policies to keep down property taxes, to keep people in their homes, can be thought of as being similar to rent regulations that allow people in their communities as personal circumstances and neighborhoods. But there is an important distinction between a tenant whose rent increases are limited by rent regulation and a property owner whose tax increases are restricted by modifications to the tax code or state STAR subsidies. In the end the property owner has gained wealth, which can be turned into income through a sale of the property.
What I propose, therefore, is to in effect turn the property tax income a sort of “income tax” while an owner is resident in a property, just as property taxes for commercial property are sort of based on net operating income. The wealth homeowners have in their homes would be taxed when they have access to it — upon sale. All properties would be assessed at full value, and all property tax rates would be equal. All existing limitations on assesment increases, assessment ratios based on class, exceptions, kickback checks, etc. would be eliminated. However, homeowners should be allowed to defer payment of all taxes in excess of four percent of their incomes in New York City, which also has a local income tax, or six percent of their income in the rest of the state, which does not, to the time of sale. In the rest of the state, a certain share of this could be permitted to school districts, a share of the counties, and a share to municipalities.
Deferred taxes would be adjusted upward for inflation to the time of sale, but to account for a temporary housing bubble, the homeowner or estate would have the option of paying a recalculated tax for all past years based on a straight line increase in value from the time of purchase to the time of sale. This would prevent a homeowner from having to pay taxes based on 2005 “values” while selling for less. Local governments would be prohibited from borrowing against deferred taxes. Presumably, differences in state aid would offset the inability to raise taxes locally because of low incomes.
This proposal, if applied to New York City, would raise my own property taxes substantially. But my children would pay less when they get their own apartments, and less when the buy a house (to offset the higher property tax), and I would pay less in taxes if we moved to a condo, freeing up space for another family which children 10 or 15 years from now.
Let’s get back to one key point. New York City property taxes are not low because New York City has a great deal. They are low because we have a local income tax. More affluent people have a much higher tax burden in New York City, and less well off have a greater burden elsewhere in the state. The rest of the state is free to adopt a local income tax is that is what it wants. But in a country where most people over-consume housing, using more square footage than really adds much to their quality of life because government tax incentives induce them to, one can make a case for taxing people based on property wealth as well. By doing so, but deferring taxes that cannot be afforded based on income, New York State’s local governments could do both.