West Hempsteaders Get Lesson on School Taxes

"The value of my home went down, so why are my taxes going up?"

It's a question that many residents in Malverne and West Hempstead, as well as others throughout the rest of Nassau County, have posed in recent years as they tear open their tax bill and one that will not go away even though the new is in effect.

Although the tax cap has been referred to as a '2-percent tax cap', West Hempstead Schools Assistant Superintendent Richard Cunningham told residents gathered at Thursday's community budget meeting, "It's not a two-percent cap on your taxes."

Rather the law sets a limit for each school district - determined by a formula that officials are still struggling to make sense of - that caps property taxes at 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.

However, this figure is only one of a number of factors that influence what each taxpayer is responsible for, so your taxes could be higher or lower than the district's tax levy.

"Your tax bill is a function of the assessed value of your home," Cunningham said. But your tax exemptions, the County's tax rate, your neighbors' home values and exemptions, and the number of vacant commerical properties also influence what you pay, he explained.

Cunningham asked the residents to imagine the taxy levy - the total amount of a money a school district must raise through taxes - as a pie. The size of the pie may stay the same, but how the portions are doled out can change. For instance, if the Smiths around the block grieve their taxes and win, their slice of the tax levy pie will be reduced, and everyone else will have to pick up the difference. If both the Smiths and Jones file grievances, they may see no change in their taxes at all even if their assessments are lowered because they are still on the same level.

"You start playing ping pong with assessed values," Cunningham said. "Everyone thinks their's is going down but they are all going down, so your piece of the tax pie stays the same. The game becomes gets yours to go down faster than everyone else."

In the case of West Hempstead, homeowners have also had to take on more of the tax burden as businesses have closed down because these vacant stores contribute far less to the tax levy.

Cunningham added, "As business come back and take on more of the tax burden you’ll start to see yours come down."

He then attempted to explain how the Town of Hempstead's Receiver of Taxes calculates each individuals' taxes, using the tax levy figure the school district supplies - based on the budget residents adopt each spring - the home values provided by the Tax Assessor's office, and a number supplied by the Nassau County Legislature. The latter, he said, dictates what each property owner will pay based on the class they fall into, but this figure doesn't come out until September, several months after school districts adopt their budgets.

"This mystery piece...has a huge effect on your taxes," Cunningham said, adding that the fact that school districts, as well as village, towns and even the County, have no idea what this figure will be when they are crafting their budgets is a major problem.

"If [the Legislature] determines that Class IV businesses get a lower portion of the tax pie more of that tax burden is coming to you, the homeowners," he said.

This is why a few years ago, when school districts were trying to fund their budgets using reserves to keep taxes reasonable, homeowners still saw huge tax increases because changes to base-prorportions caused the value of businesses to go down, shifting the burden, he explained.

If these base proportions were set earlier, school officials and residents would have a better idea, before they went out to vote, on how their district's budget would impact their tax bill.

Both Cunningham and Superintendent John Hogan said they have made this suggestion to legislators in the past, but this hasn't been an issue any of them have taken on.

"Politicans pay attention to things that will get them votes or cost them votes and base-proportions isn't not one of them," said Hogan, who added that residents would have to be the ones to put the pressure on their local legislators to make this an issue.

Upon learning all of this, Barbara Hafner, a West Hempstead resident and president of the teacher's union, suggested the community do just that.

"If the tax cap will now be a major detriment to public schools and this is a big factor, it would benefit the district to educate the community to get on the case of legislatures to make a change," she said. "It isn’t business as usual anymore and things have to change."

Stay with Patch for more coverage of the 2012-2013 budget for the West Hempstead school district. To catch up on stories you may have missed visit our topic page here.