School districts here in the Lower Hudson Valley often are comprised of more than just one town. Here’s a letter I recently received talking about how the system “is badly broken” and is “tearing us apart” because of tax inequalities between different towns.

“Hello Diana.  My name is Marc Kirschner.  I’m a trustee on the Tarrytown BOE; I’ve served for the past 13 years.  Thank you for your accurate and informative coverage of our upcoming budget vote.  I’m writing because we believe there is a much bigger story here, involving the inequity in the tax system that drives the massive split in tax increases for our proposed budget this year (9% in Tarrytown and 3% in Sleephy Hollow).

It’s important to note that this problem affects not just us, but many districts all across the state, who have residents split between different towns.  In fact, there’s a relationship between this problem, and its negative impact on the trends in shared services and governance that are being championed by influencers like AG Andrew Cuomo.  Mr. Cuomo knows that combining services and governance between small villages can help save real money, but tax issues like this one serve to severely undermine the success of those efforts.

In short, the system is badly broken—and “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more.”  Not mad at our villages or towns; they’re doing nothing wrong.  We’re mad at the system that is, in effect, tearing us apart.  When you have two villages, in two separate towns, and one shared school district, the tax system serves to effectively pit one side of the district against the other—every year.  As a resident, it’s only natural to feel uncomfortable when you know one village is paying more than the other in its school tax increase.  But when the town assessments drive a huge differential like this, then you have a problem that could threaten passage of your budget.  And that’s a problem we don’t need.  We need support.  We need an equitable tax system that treats our residents fairly.

What’s the solution?  We need to have the two villages treated as a single tax district for the purpose of levying school taxes.  Tax assessables across two entire towns are not meaningful or applicable when it comes to setting school taxes for two small villages.  But that’s what’s going on.  How we achieve the solution—fair tax treatment—needs to be figured out.  Reassessments at the village level? Some sort of exemption?  Secession from the towns?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that this is a tax system that is unfair, and, as in this year, has the potential of causing our budget to be voted down—even though the district has worked extremely hard to get to an average tax increase of about 6%.  That increase is in line with most districts in our area, and has been achieved even though we are also managing a roughly $60 million construction program.  But the success of our budget vote is placed in jeopardy by an unfair taxation system.

As a school board we have decided to work hard to bring attention to this problem.  We are starting the process of mobilizing our community and contacting legislators to push for action.”