Voters to decide on 3% school property tax hike May 17

Guided by a political climate in New York, led by Gov. Cuomo, that is urging school districts and government agencies to cap taxes, the Peekskill  School  Board will present a 2011-12 budget with a 3% property tax increase to voters on May 17.

School property taxes rose by 4.4% last year. School property taxes in Peekskill increased over six years from an average of $4,160 in 2004-05 to $5,936 in 2010-11, a 43 percent rise. Under the proposed budget, a home assessed at $10,000, the district average, would pay $6,180 in taxes in 2011-12.           

In addition to the annual property tax hikes, two years ago the school board imposed a new utility tax on all Peekskill households. The new utility tax rate varies from 0.5 percent to 3 percent on applicable utility bills covering gas, propane, electricity, refrigeration, steam, local telephone and telegraph services and telephone answering services. The utility was expected to raise an estimated $700,000 for the district. State law does not call for voter approval of utility taxes by school boards.

At its April 12 meeting, the Board adopted a proposed budget for the 2011-2012 school year of $72,013,090. This represents a 1.46% budget-to-budget increase over the 2010-2011 budget of $70,980,246, and produces a forecasted 3.00% increase in the tax levy.

Interim Superintendent Dr. Lorenzo Licopoli, in presenting the budget, emphasized the District’s commitment to retaining the core academic programs in place in the schools. “Our goal this year was to maintain our instructional and operational program as much as possible, insuring stability and continuity as we educate the children of our community to be productive members of society,” Licopoli said.

The proposed budget meets the District’s contractual obligations despite the challenge of a 4.5% reduction in State aid, the third year in a row that State aid has been cut.  Total State aid is projected to be $28,754,261, compared to $30,100,649 for 2010-2011. The adopted budget would result in an estimated tax bill for a home assessed at $10,000 of $6,180.

“With Dr. Licopoli’s guidance and with the advice of our Citizen’s Budget Advisory Committee, the Board was able to find savings throughout the budget to ease the reductions this year,” said Board president Michael Simpkins. The Board also committed to increasing the appropriated fund balance from $2,086,464 to $2,801,626 in 2011-2012, in order to ease the burden on taxpayers.

The proposed budget is designed to meet student learning goals with a focus on reading and is part of an overall approach to planning for the District’s future that has begun this spring and will continue under newly-appointed superintendent James Willis.

“We have initiated an internal study of our educational and operational priorities,” said Dr. Licopoli. “This will give us the information we need to ‘Plan the Plan’ for 2012-2013. District initiatives include assessments of the K-6 reading needs and the K-12 ELA and Math curriculum, and a District-Wide Middle States Accreditation Review on overall organizational effectiveness. On the financial side, the district is developing a comprehensive financial forecasting analysis.”

Further details on these initiatives are available under the “Budget” tab on the District Web site, www.peekskillcsd.org. In addition, comments are welcome on the blog, Planning the Plan, at http://www.peekskillcsd.org/blogs/planningtheplan.

A public hearing on the budget will be held on Tuesday, May 3 at 7:00 p.m. Voter registration is April 27 from 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Administration Building, 1031 Elm Street.  The budget vote is Tuesday, May 17 from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Peekskill High School.

Peekskill property taxpayers and increased state aid have funded a 39 percent increase in the overall school budget between 2003-04 and 2009-10, an average annual increase of 5.6 percent.