Despite the name, it isn’t a tax cap! |
On Board Online EXTRA • November 5, 2012
By Jeffrey S. Handelman
Memo to school board members and school administrators: Do not refer to last year’s tax levy legislation as a “2 percent tax cap”! This misnomer has contributed to misperceptions about the law’s impact on taxes, according to a presentation at NYSSBA’s 93rd Annual Convention & Education Expo in Rochester on Oct. 27.
Capital Region BOCES presenters Deborah Bush-Suflita and Michele Levings explained that the legislation does not cap anyone’s tax bill, but it does have a real impact on contingency budgets. The misperception over the law has caused credibility problems for school districts with taxpayers.
The message from the presenters at the workshop, called “Lessons Learned from Year One of the NYS Tax Levy ‘Cap’ ” was that educators need to wage an aggressive campaign to help taxpayers understand what the law really means. Despite the fact that state aid increased this school year for the first time since 2009-10, this is not a time to celebrate. State aid is now limited to growth in personal income, there is no aid increase for districts without an approved evaluation system in place by January 2013, and it will take districts a while to recover from the painful cuts they made over the last few years.
Bush-Suflita and Levings advised districts to:
- Get out in front of difficult issues. It is up to districts to clear up any myths and misperceptions, and you should not rely on politicians or reports.
- Critique your district’s communications efforts. You no longer have to rely on traditional media to tell your story. Use social media to get your message out. Sharing information, not hoarding it, is key to success.
- Pay special attention to communications with faculty and staff. This is the group most directly impacted by a district’s fiscal realities. Boards faced pressure from employees to exceed the tax levy cap; educating staff on the needs to make responsible, yet painful cuts is key to obtaining employee buy-in and concessions at the bargaining table. An important message is that the risks of a defeated budget can be far more damaging than the proposed cuts.
- Get out the vote. While it is important to avoid even the appearance of advocacy or electioneering, districts can and should heavily promote the vote, along with details about the budget. Use the district website social media and traditional media to achieve this.
- Conduct an exit survey! This simple step can provide the district with a wealth of information, such as feedback on the effectiveness of communications efforts, trends in voter sentiment, and useful data to inform the next year’s budget development. If your budget is defeated, you will really wish you had conducted a survey, as you can use voter insights to get the second vote right. Knowing why the budget was defeated is far better than guessing the reasons.
- Mobilize going forward for better solutions. Energize your base, demand better legislation from elected leaders, and work with NYSSBA to try to achieve adequate, predictable and fair state aid funding in additional to meaningful mandate relief.