ALBANY, N.Y. -- To tax cap or not to tax cap. That is the legislature's question Tuesday.
Right now, the assembly isn't talking cap. It's talking circuit breaker, which has so far been the deal breaker with the Senate and Governor.
“Everyone's cooperating. We don't agree,” Governor Paterson said.
Many who want the cap look to Massachusetts. For nearly 30 years, it's been the Bay State's property tax plan.
“Massachusetts had a number of advantages when it enacted its property tax cap,” said Iris Lav.
Lav from the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, says the state's tax cap was put in place during the 1980s, a time called the Massachusetts Miracle. It was a boom time for economic growth and made up the difference from less taxes being collected by more state money being available for schools, money that Lav says New York doesn't have.
If you pay property taxes, you probably heard by now about the Governor and Senate's plan for a tax cap. It limits by how much a school district can increase its budget each year. But as Curtis Schick reports, some say all you have to do is look east for reasons why the plan has problems.
"New York is having a fiscal crisis. It is not enacting a cap at a time when the economy is booming and there is a lot of money in the state coffers," Lav said.
Lav spoke to a crowd of tax payer advocates and elected officials in Albany and says the Bay State's tax cap has come full circle. She says with the state battling its own financial woes, state aid to schools has dropped or been flat for a decade. And while property taxes fund schools those expenses are included in local municipality budgets, in New York they are separate. To fill the gap, Lav says middle class Massachusetts towns face local or school cuts.
“They are laying off teachers, getting rid of sports programs, making parents drive their kids,” said Lav.
“We could fight over tax caps or we could fight over circuit breakers. Ultimately it is the state that has control over spending,” said Ulster County legislator Susan Zimet.
Zimet supports the circuit breaker plan but says more must happen. She says it's troubling at time when New Yorker's are looking for change, the gridlock between the Senate and Assembly continues.
“What the senate and assemblyman need to do is sit down and say is we need real reform, people are losing their homes, people can't pay for their health insurance,” said Zimet.
But with the sides so far apart, the reality of real reform is probably unlikely.