Well, city taxpayers, get ready to start celebrating.
Forget about begging Albany for more money. The good people
of the Town of Brighton, backed by the Brighton-Pittsford Post, have come up
with a way to help solve the city’s financial problems:
Get tax-exempt properties to pay for the services they use.
Monroe Community College is located in Brighton, and the West
Brighton fire department has to provide service to the college. And because MCC
is a school, it doesn’t pay taxes. That means it gets the fire department’s service
for free. And according to last week’s Brighton-Pittsford Post, about 16
percent of the fire district’s calls are related to the college.
MCC, says the Post, is talking with the town about possibly
paying for those services.
What an absolutely splendid idea! And let’s bring
that idea into in the city. Get the University of Rochester to pay for the
services that the city provides. All of that gorgeous campus — including the
dorms — is tax exempt. All of the Medical Center is tax exempt. The
university doesn’t pay a dime when the city sends cops or firefighters there.
City taxpayers do.
Let’s get county government to pay for the services its city
properties use. Let’s get churches to pay. And museums. And the federal
government. And the county water authority.
This would not be loose change, friends. Thirty percent of
the property in the City of Rochester is tax exempt. Thirty percent!
Some of that property is used strictly by city residents, of
course: city schools, City Hall. And some of the exemptions go directly to city
residents: veterans and senior citizens who get a reduction on their property
taxes, for instance.
But a lot of the exemptions go to institutions used by
people throughout the region. Who uses Strong Hospital? Who uses the Strong
Museum, the Eastman Theatre, the Metro Center Y, the downtown library, the Red
Cross? Who uses Highland Park and the Seneca Park zoo?
Not just city residents.
Who pays for the fire and police protection for those places?
Only city residents.
A Brighton-Pittsford Posteditorial last week noted
that the ESL sports center — which is partially tax exempt — gave the West
Brighton fire department $7000 last year to offset the cost of services. MCC,
the Postreasons, should do the same for its dorms.
Said the Post:“The school, one of the town’s largest
properties, can — and should — pay for its share.”
Yesssss!
In the same issue, the Post’sBenjamin Wachs argued
that actually, the new dorm shouldn’t be built in Brighton at all. It should be
built downtown. On one level, Wachs’ idea has merit. As he notes, downtown’s
future rests in large part on increasing the number of people who live there. It
might make sense to build a dorm near Renaissance Square, to serve MCC’s new
facility in that complex.
But that would add to the amount of tax-exempt property in
the city. And city taxpayers will already take a hit with Ren Square itself,
which will be built on heretofore taxable property.
So… fair is fair, yes? If MCC is gonna pay Brighton, then
MCC, the University of Rochester, and all the other tax-exempts should pay the
city.
I can hardly wait to see this play out. Who’s gonna be first
in line?
Pay now? Later? Never?
How wonderful to be the government of the State of New York
and just thumb your nose at a judge.
Yet another court has said that the state is violating its
own constitution by not providing nearly enough money for New York City
schools. The state had appealed a lower court ruling that said the same thing,
but on March 23, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court rejected that
appeal. New York, said the court, “must appropriate the constitutionally
required funding.”
The plaintiff in the case, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity,
has argued that because the state doesn’t provide enough aid to the New York
City school district, the district can’t hire enough qualified teachers, pay
them enough, keep the buildings in good condition, and in a myriad other ways
meet the needs of its students. Therefore, CFE has argued, New York is
violating its constitutional guarantee of “the opportunity for a sound basic
education.”
Urban school districts throughout the state have been
following the case closely, believing that it will be politically impossible
for the governor and the legislature to ramp up funding only for New York City.
Maybe. But we’ll never get to that point. While CFE called
the ruling a “major victory,” Governor Pataki in effect dismissed thoughts that
the court had ordered the state to do more than it’s doing.
In the end, this latest ruling will have no more effect than
the previous ones. The state has fought the CFE case since it began — more than
10 years ago. It has ignored previous, clear orders to provide more money. These
are only city schools, after all: city schools with predominantly poor,
minority students.
And so there is no public outcry. No rush by the state
legislature to set things right.
And for Pataki, there’s more incentive than ever to drag his
heels. He’ll be out of office in less than a year.
This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2006.
