East Ramapo Town Council approves tax increase ordered by New York State Commissioner
East Ramapo School Board approves property tax increase
East Ramapo School Board approves property tax increase
SPRING VALLEY – The East Ramapo school board on Wednesday night passed a drastic directive from the state education commissioner to raise property taxes to a total of 5.38% for 2024-25, more than four times the 1% increase voters approved in June.
The majority of board members voted for the increase under protest, it was said.
“I vote yes, as instructed by the commissioner,” said trustee Moshe Samuel Feder. “It is an unfair and unlawful decision.”
Trustee Moses Koth said he believes Rosa’s decision was illegal. However, he also voted for the tax increase amendment.
Koth and others pointed out that failure to comply with a commissioner’s order could result in the dismissal of a board member.
Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said in a surprise July 31 order that the panel’s decision to propose a 2024-25 budget that increases tax collections by 1% was “arbitrary, capricious and contrary to education policy because it unfairly favors nonpublic school students at the expense of public school students.”
The school board’s decision to comply with Rosa’s order will result in an additional 4.38% increase in tax collection, bringing the total increase for the school year that began July 1 to 5.38%.
East Ramapo has limited resources and shared needs
Rosa’s order came in response to a formal appeal from a parent planning to attend public school who called for increased spending on public schools in the district.
In East Ramapo, the vast majority of the more than 10,000 public school students are black or brown and majority English-language learners. The district’s test scores are among the lowest in the state and the percentage of children considered homeless is one of the highest.
Even if $90 million in federal Covid-19 aid were allocated for building repairs, schools would still need hundreds of millions of dollars worth of repairs. After eight years of keeping all school drinking fountains inaccessible to children because of high lead levels, only a fraction of them are expected to be repaired by the time schools reopen in the fall.
State orders East Ramapo: Increase tax revenue by 4.38% and use the money for children in public schools
In addition, more than 30,000 other children living within the district’s boundaries attend private schools, mostly yeshivas that serve the Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish community.
For over a decade, the public school community has felt that the school board favors the needs of the private school community, often citing an expensive, universal busing system that is the most complex of any school system in the state outside of New York City.
Commissioner Rosa’s order was described as seditious
East Ramapo School Board Chairman Shimon Rose made his dissatisfaction with the order clear. He questioned how the current board could be blamed for the actions of previous boards. Rose called the connection “troubling.”
“The only similarity between the board today and the board 10 years ago that the commissioner addresses in his letter is that they are visibly Orthodox and we are unvisibly Orthodox,” Rose said before the roll call vote. “This fuels tensions and causes hatred and animosity between congregants.”
Cheers and boos: East Ramapo residents and politicians react to order to raise state taxes
Rose said more focus needs to be placed on fixing the state’s formula for distributing “basic aid” to school districts, which ignores private school enrollment even though the district still provides legally required services to children in private schools.
Trustee Yitzchok Gruber said Rosa’s order was “ridiculous.”
“It fuels hatred and all the booing and shouting that we hear tonight,” Gruber said. But he voted for the tax increase, he said, because Rosa ordered it and “she’s the boss.”
Trustee Eric Young-Mercer, who joined the board in June and is an East Ramapo alumnus, said “absolutely yes” when asked about his vote. Trustees Sherry McGill and Sabrina Charles-Pierre also voted a resounding yes.
Last minute attempt to prevent board vote
The previous Wednesday, a group of parents had attempted to obtain an injunction to stop the board’s vote.
School board attorney Douglas Gerhardt sided with the plaintiffs, Parents Against Stealth Taxes. But state Supreme Court Justice Sherri Eisenpress disagreed and allowed the vote to proceed.
East Ramapo: Judge: Vote must be held on state-mandated tax increase for public schools
“Either the kids have to wait a year and a half for English as a second language instruction or the taxes are raised and have to be refunded (later),” Eisenpress said during a virtual hearing just hours before the school board’s vote. “I just don’t see what the irreparable harm is in letting this continue.”
Many assume that legal challenges to the government-imposed tax increases will continue.
