by Thaddeus Flint
Alternative Veterans Exemptions, a topic that many school districts across the State have had to struggle with, was the main topic of discussion at Tuesday’s monthly meeting of the Berlin School Board.
A new State law signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in December allows school districts to allow partial tax exemptions to military veterans. Previously these exemptions were only applied to village, town and county taxes.
[private]School districts would be allowed to offer up to a 15% reduction in assessed value for war time veterans, plus 10% for those who served in combat zones. Veterans could also receive a reduction based on disabilities sustained during their service.
While few would probably disagree with the idea of rewarding veterans for their time in service, some might not be so keen on the idea when they learn that their taxes will be raised to fund the plan. Although the Governor might be reaping praise for signing the bill, he is not about to pick up the tab for it. You are.
The problem with the law, at least in the eyes of those who see a problem with the law, is that the tax exemptions will cause a tax shift. The tax levy for the Berlin School District will remain the same. So non-veteran residents in a town with a particularly large population of veterans might see a noticeable increase in their school taxes.
“It is becoming clear that there will be a significant shift in tax burden to the non-veteran property taxpayers in many school districts – especially in small school districts,” said NYS State Assemblyman, Tom Abinanti (D-Greenburgh/Mt. Pleasant), back in February. “Understandably, some districts may decline to offer the exemption, which defeats the State policy of providing these benefits.”
This, too, would be unfair, as some veterans might then get the exemptions and some not, based on what each school district decides to do.
The New York State School Board Association has called the law a “lose-lose proposition.”
Whatever the outcome might be, the Governor has left it up to school districts to deal with it, and that is just what BCS is now trying to.
The problem with deciding how much – if any – exemptions the District will allow necessitates getting an idea of just how much taxes might shift from veterans to non-veterans. The matter is complicated. As each of the five towns that make up the Berlin School District have different numbers of veterans and different tax rates, figuring out just what the possible impact to non-veteran taxpayers could be is an intricate guess at best.
The District’s Business Manager, Karen Capozzi, put together a spread sheet model of how things would have turned out had the exemptions been in place for 2014. The result was a pages-long packet of numbers that pretty much anyone would have trouble digesting in one sitting.
And the numbers are changing. “Every year you could get new veterans,” pointed out Board Member Jeff Paine. You could also loose old veterans as they die off or move to warmer climates.
Paine suggested that Capozzi put together a PowerPoint® presentation “to help us understand it better.”
And it’s not just the School Board that will have to understand it but the general public as well. “It would be very hard to explain to the average home owner,” pointed out Paine. Which is exactly what the Board will be tasked with doing sometime before the March deadline when a Public Hearing on the exemptions must be held before a final vote by the Board.
Capozzi said she would get to work on the presentation, and it is expected to be ready for a round-table discussion on December 4 at 7:15 pm. In the meantime, Capozzi has advised that those with eligibility questions on the exemption check out the New York State Department of Taxation and Finances’ website for further information. This can be found at http://www.tax.ny.gov/pit/property/exemption/altvetexempt.htm.
Meetings
Thee will be a round table discussion on Veterans exemptions on December 4 at 7:15 pm.
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board will be December 16 at 7:15 pm.[/private]