Many Districts Propose 0% Tax Increase
By Dan Murphy
May 21 is the date Westchester school districts present their budgets for the upcoming 2019-20 school year, which starts in September. Voters will also review school board candidates and approve or reject their respective budgets.
One of the many surprises in the school budget plans across the county include the Mt. Vernon School District’s ability to submit to the voters a school budget that does not raise property taxes for five consecutive years.
Mt. Vernon School District Assistant Superintendent Ken Silver explained at a recent meeting of the school board that an increase in State Foundation Aid of 3.78 percent, the use of fund balance, and educating more special education students in the district have saved the district, and the taxpayers, significant funds.
Mt. Vernon taxpayers will still have to pay bout $150 per year for the next dozen years for $108 million capital bond passed in 2016. Kudos to the Mt. Vernon School District for presenting responsible budgets with the lowest tax increases in Westchester County, despite an ongoing dispute with City Comptroller Deborah Reynolds.
The City of Mt. Vernon collects the school district’s taxes and hands them over after collection. Or that has been the standard operating procedure until Reynolds didn’t hand over the second installment of school property taxes collected in January, totaling $87 million, which was $23 million short of what was collected and what was supposed to be transferred to the Board of Education.
The Mt. Vernon School District has been forced to sue the comptroller for the funds, with Reynolds responding in court documents, “If your client(s) feel that my office does not reconcile nor process school payments in a timely manner they desire, the school system can start collecting its own taxes and perform its own record keeping,” with no other explanation or indication when, if ever, the other $23 million would be transferred.
Reynolds is also involved in a financial battle with Mt. Vernon Mayor Richard Thomas over unpaid bills and with each other pointing the finger for incompetence.
Other Westchester School Districts and their proposed tax increases include:
Bronxville 2.66 percent, Byram Hills 1.94 percent, Eastchester 2.12 percent, Greenburgh 2.90 percent, Harrison 2.32 percent, Lakeland 1.49 percent, Mamaroneck 0.90 percent, New Rochelle 2.2 percent, Ossining 2.95 percent, Peekskill 2 percent, Pelham 3.17 percent, Pocantico Hills minus–0.7 percent, Rye 2.82 percent, Tuckahoe 2.2 percent, White Plains 3.44 percent, and Yorktown 0.85 percent.
Several school districts also have bond proposals on the ballot for capital improvements. The Briarcliff Manor school district has proposed just under $3 million in bonding after a previous bond proposal of $34 million was rejected last year.
In the Irvington School District, an $18.8 million bond plan is before the voters; in Pleasantville, an $8.9 million capital plan; and in Somers, a $10.45 million rebuild bond is before the voters. In most all of these school districts, the tax increase is negligible, because of retiring debt and because of state reimbursement rates of between 20 and 30 percent.
In Westchester last year, the New Rochelle and Mamaroneck school districts attempted to pass budgets that exceeded the tax cap. The voters in New Rochelle rejected that idea, but in Mamaroneck it passed. The property tax cap is 2 percent – and 60 percent of voters must override any school budget above the cap.
