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Tax cap could be permanent in NY

The state's property-tax cap expires next year, and new Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan introduced legislation Friday to make it permanent and decouple it from rent-control laws in New York City.
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ALBANY The state's property-tax cap expires next year, and new Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan introduced legislation Friday to make it permanent and decouple it from rent-control laws in New York City.

The move by Flanagan, R-Suffolk County, and Senate Republicans is their latest attempt to make the tax cap, put into effect in 2011, a permanent law amid protests from schools, unions and local governments.

Flanagan said in a statement Sunday that the Senate would act as early as this week to approve the bill.

The tax cap has been widely popular with voters, particularly in upstate and the New York City suburbs, where property taxes are the highest in the nation. A Siena College poll in January showed 70 percent of New Yorkers supported the cap, which limits the growth in property taxes to less than 2 percent a year.

The cap — which applies to all taxing entities in New York, including schools, municipalities and special districts — is set to expire June 15, 2016.

"Tax cap permanence is necessary to continue in the right direction for New York," the bill says, "and provide surety to New York's businesses and taxpayers that New York's tax climate is one that they can trust to limit unwieldy and unnecessary tax growth."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the architect of the cap, has hailed its success. Prior to the cap, school taxes grew an average 5 percent a year; for the school budget vote Tuesday, districts are proposing a tax levy increase of 1.6 percent.

He has also proposed this year a tax-rebate program tied to household income to curb high property taxes.

"New York has no future as the high-tax capital of the world, and keeping the tax cap in place, as well as enacting the governor's property-tax credit, will provide tax relief to those who need it the most," Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said in February.

When it was approved in 2011, the tax cap was tied in the law to the continuation of rent-control laws in New York City and its suburbs — a way to make the cap palatable to New York City Democrats, who have championed the rent laws.

Since then, though, the cap has been extended until 2016, while the rent laws expire next month — which could be leverage for Cuomo and Republicans to make the cap permanent this year.

Assembly Democrats have traditionally been allied with the New York State United Teachers union, which opposes the cap and has unsuccessfully sued to have the cap tossed.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, said in March that his Assembly conference hasn't made any determinations about the tax cap yet.

"That's a subject that we would have to bring up in front of the entire conference," he said.

Meanwhile, business groups on Monday are expected to ramp up their pressure to make the cap permanent, unveiling a web site to show much money the cap has saved homeowners and businesses since it was adopted.

The cap allows for tax-levy growth of 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. The cap for the coming fiscal year for schools is 1.62 percent; districts' fiscal year starts July 1.

Education groups are seeking changes to the cap, such as no longer requiring a 60-percent vote for schools or 60 percent of a municipality's governing board to override the cap. They also no longer want to tie the cap limit to the rate of inflation.

Flanagan made the tax cap his top agenda item Sunday in a lengthy statement about Senate Republicans' priorities for the remainder of the legislative session, which ends June 17. On Monday, the Legislature will have just 15 session days left.

Flanagan was elected majority leader by the GOP conference a week ago to replace Sen. Dead Skelos, who resigned after he was arrested on corruption charges.

"First and foremost, we should make the property tax cap permanent in New York," Flanagan said in a statement. "Doing so will bring certainty to taxpayers, help create good jobs and grow our economy for the future. To that end, the Senate will act as early as this week to make the current property tax cap permanent in New York state."

He also said the conference would press for a Education Investment Tax Credit, which would allow for tax-deductible donations to public and private schools, and increase the charter school cap — two measures opposed by unions and Assembly Democrats.

Flanagan, the former Senate Education Committee chairman, said the conference would also look to reform standardized testing in schools "to make parents more comfortable with what is happening in their children's classrooms and by extension their kids as well."

In addition to seeking reforms for mayoral control of New York City schools and to toughen laws against sexual assaults on college campuses, Flanagan said it's "time to make common-sense reforms" to the state's gun-control law, the SAFE Act.

The law, approved in 2013 by the Legislature, including by some Senate GOP members, has been staunchly opposed by upstate Republicans. And Flanagan's ascension was knocked by some leaders and gun-rights groups because he voted in favor of the law.

But it's uncertain whether Assembly Democrat and Cuomo, who has championed the gun law, would go along.

"With less than five weeks of session to go, it's time to get together and resolve our differences so we can build on the progress we made earlier this year and truly help the residents of this state," Flanagan said.

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