Send message to state, schools

Many local school district budgets for 2008-09 include tax-levy increases of between 2 percent and 4 percent. Those painful increases are bad enough, but two local districts have gone over the top with their proposed tax levies.

When voters in the Gloversville and Broadalbin-Perth districts go to the polls Tuesday, they’ll decide on school budgets containing 7 percent tax-levy increases.

Any property tax jump will be difficult for people who already are struggling with rising costs of fuel, food and other products, services, fees and taxes. The 7 percent increases are out of line and should be rejected.

Not that rejection will make much of a difference in Gloversville. If voters turn down the budget in that district, the school board likely would approve a contingency budget containing roughly the same levy increase.

Still, voters should cast their no votes, if only to send this message to state and local education officials: The state is forcing too many costly programs onto local schools, and school boards aren’t doing enough to reduce the spending they can control.

Gloversville voters should be particularly upset. The district’s property owners pay one of the highest school tax rates in the area. After the Gloversville district adopted its tentative budget, state Sen. Hugh T. Farley, R-Niskayuna, secured an additional $200,000 in aid. Instead of applying at least some of that money to reduce the tax levy, the Gloversville school board said it would put all of it into the fund balance. Adding to that reserve account may be sound financial practice, but the taxpayers are desperate for a break. If the district could have managed without the higher fund balance when it approved the tentative budget, it could have safely applied some of the additional $200,000 to lower the levy.

Other districts that also received the extra state “bullet aid” through Farley will use it to lower their tax levies. The Greater Johnstown School District, for example, says it will use its $50,000 in additional aid to cut its proposed tax-levy increase from 2.7 percent to 2 percent. The St. Johnsville Central School District will use its additional $22,407 to reduce its 1.6 percent tax-levy increase to zero.

Voters are in charge. If they think skyrocketing taxes are having a negative effect on their lives and community, they should make sure their state and local leaders know it.

But regardless of their opinions on the budgets, we urge people to get out and vote Tuesday.