Galef: I Like Tax Cap
In a sign that Assembly Democrats may be splitting from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver over his opposition to a tax cap, Assembly Real Property Tax Committee Chairwoman Sandy Galef, D-Ossining, said today that she now backs a school-property-tax cap.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the cap is the only way we can get some kind of controls here,” Galef told Gannett News Service.
The decision by Galef, a former teacher, indicates that some Democrats are quietly reconsidering Silver’s stance that a tax cap would hurt schools. And in a tough election year, they may want a tax cap to fend off pressure from voters and their Republican opponents, who have been daily hammering Democratic incumbents for not passing a cap.
Galef’s stance is also interesting because she has been a major proponent of a circuit-breaker plan, which is favored by unions and would tie property taxes to a percentage of household incomes.
Galef said that a circuit breaker is still her preferred choice, but she sees a tax cap as a way to move the debate forward and achieve some mandate relief for schools. For example, Senate Republicans plan to adopt mandate-relief measures for schools when it approves a tax cap a week from today.
“I would have said last year I wasn’t for a cap,” Galef said, adding however that “It’s a way to force other decisions on the school level, but it’s also a way to force us to look at the mandates. Without that pressure, none of these mandates have had any changes.”
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This is from the Journal News on July 16, 2008
Galef’s rhetoric doesn’t match actions on property taxes
By Bill Gouldman • July 16, 2008
Regarding the July 7 Community View, “Property tax cap can be part of effective relief plan,” by state Assemblywoman Sandra Galef, D-Ossining:
Assemblywoman Galef’s public pronouncements don’t match up with her performance in the Assembly. She is the chairwoman of the Assembly Committee on Real Property Taxation and has been for five years. During her time as chairwoman, no vote has been taken in the Assembly to cap property taxes despite statistics issued by the state Comptroller’s Office that show from 1995 to 2005, local property tax levies throughout New York rose by 60 percent. Climbing at more than twice the rate of inflation, property taxes are the No. 1 reason why people and jobs flee New York.
On June 3, I hand-delivered a letter to Assemblywoman Galef’s Ossining office. I demanded that the Assembly remain in session and not adjourn for the summer until it finally voted upon property tax cap legislation. Mrs. Galef has not responded to my letter. However, she did write the Community View in The Journal News that continues to leave unanswered the following questions:
1. Why, during her five years as the chair of the Assembly Committee on Real Property Taxation, has Mrs. Galef been unable to get property tax-cap legislation to the Assembly floor for a vote?
2. Why did Mrs. Galef provide the Assembly with an excuse for not voting on a tax cap by going along with a delay of more than two weeks of the report of the New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief?
3. Knowing that in 2007 New York state doled out $353 million in property tax rebates to people who did not pay their property taxes, why didn’t Mrs. Galef do something to recover this money? Why has this loophole not been closed?
4. What assurances do New Yorkers have that rebates will not continue to be given to property tax scofflaws? With a massive hole in New York’s budget, when will Mrs. Galef and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver take action to recover the $353 million that the state desperately needs?
5. On June 8, The Journal News reported that unpaid school taxes rose in Putnam County by 9.5 percent. This $13 million burden has been transferred to the county. In the article, Putnam County Finance Director William Carlin said that the climb in unpaid property taxes was due to “a combination of higher school taxes and people having more difficulty paying.’’ As an Assembly committee chair, what action will Mrs. Galef take to help Putnam meet this new financial burden?
6. When will the Assembly finally set a date for a vote on property tax-cap legislation?
Mrs. Galef has spent a lifetime in public service. It is disappointing and unacceptable that she has gone along, and continues to, with the business-as-usual practices of the Assembly. To hold a “property tax cap forum’’ knowing that the Assembly has not, and will not, set a date for a vote is a sham and pandering of the worst kind.
Too much is at stake! We are facing financial hardship that has been unseen since the Great Depression. The evidence is overwhelming, the people’s demand for property tax relief deafening. The time to set a date to vote on a property tax cap is now! Mrs. Galef and the members of the Assembly should go back to Albany and finally vote on capping property taxes.
The writer, who lives in Putnam Valley, has declared his candidacy as the Republican-Conservative candidate for Galef’s 90th District seat in the state Assembly.
The Polls must be telling her she is in trouble.
Bingo!
What has taken you so long to see what the people want?
The voters of Croton are disappointed.
Where else but in New York. Will you see a long term politician who will agee with his or her unknown challenger. It should be an interesting campaign season.
So there goes standing on principle and having long term beliefs that you stand up for. All she stands for is getting reelected. We thought you were above all of this. But I guess you are like all the other Politicians. You say what you think the voters want. What we need is someone who will stand up for what they say.
I was on the fence, but I know who I am voting for now.
What politician does not say, when campaigning, what he/she thinks the majority of voters want them to say? Problems arise when they simply give lip service to this while campaigning and then , once elected, assume that they are papal delegates, above the fray, and smarter than the people who put them in office. We are not interested in electing independent Solomons, but rather representatives.
I don’t think Sandra Galef has had opposition for several years. People felt that she was unbeatable so why take the time and spend the money. But this shows that if you believe like ed1 said that you are above the fray, and smarter than the people who put you in office you will have a problem.
Run Gouldman Run