Gov. Cuomo says capping property taxes ranks at the very top of his accomplishments so far.  It may not be as historic as legalizing same-sex marriage, but the cap promises huge long-term benefits for taxpayers and the state’s economy. Click “more” below for the full story!
DJ Matthew Tyler
After its first year of operation, the cap is delivering as advertised.

First, it’s providing real relief for homeowners and businesses outside New York City, who’ve long been burdened with some of the highest property levies in the country.

Cuomo’s law held the average tax hike by school districts and town and county governments to a remarkably low 2% — less than half the annual average for the past 10 years of 5.3%.

Those 3 percentage points add up to millions of dollars staying in New Yorkers’ pockets.

And because the cap permanently limits increases to 2% or the inflation rate, whichever is less, those savings will multiply as years go by.

A second good sign is that the vast majority of local governments chose to live within the cap rather than exceed it by supermajority vote.

For school districts — which need approval from 60% of local voters in a referendum to break the cap — the compliance rate was an impressive 95%.

And among village, town and county governments — which can bust the cap more easily, by a 60% vote of their governing board — 81% stayed in line.

Even for municipalities that went beyond the cap, their average hike was smaller than the going rate from previous years.

All of this means that the tax cap has forced fiscal discipline on local politicians. They’re paring down payrolls, cutting back on overtime, spending down slush funds. They even got their public employee unions to agree to contract concessions to avoid layoffs — all necessary steps in these tough economic times.

The law is so overwhelmingly popular that even enemies of the cap are trying to posture as supporters.

For instance, Westchester Assemblyman George Latimer, a Democrat running for the state Senate, declares in his campaign mailers that he “favors a tax cap and relief from state mandates” — without mentioning that he actually voted against Cuomo’s legislation last year.

Then there’s the statewide teachers union, which hates the tax cap so much that — as the Daily News’ Kenneth Lovett reported Monday — it’s launching attack ads against several Republican legislators who supported it by way of revenge.

And what negative thing did they find to say about Rochester-area Senate candidate Sean Hanna? That he raised property taxes — back in 2004, when he was a Monroe County legislator.

Source: NY Daily News