Senate Bill S7433

                                BILL NUMBER:S7433

TITLE OF BILL:
An act
to amend the education law, in relation to limitations upon school
district tax levies

PURPOSE:
To provide an exclusion of tax certiorari refund payments
from school tax levy limits in relation to the real property tax cap.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one amends section 2023-a of the
education law by adding a new subdivision 3(a) to authorize the
Comptroller to determine the costs and savings for local governments
and school districts affected by tax refunds from certiorari and
allow for the tax levy to be adjusted in accordance with those refunds.

Section two sets the enacting date.

JUSTIFICATION:
In 2010, the Nassau County Legislature voted to repeal
the "County Guarantee" for refunds from successful tax certiorari
proceedings, effective in the 2012-13 school year. School districts
in Nassau County will now be responsible for a majority of the
refunds resulting from such proceedings, and these figures must now
              

be factored into the school districts' budgets. Applying this unknown
annual sum of tax certiorari refunds into the calculation of a school
district's tax levy will unintentionally adversely impact taxpayers.

General Municipal Law section 3-c provides that where the
responsibility and associated cost of a local government function is
transferred to another local government, the State Comptroller must
determine the costs and savings for the affected local governments
attributable to the transfer for the first fiscal year following the
transfer. However, there is no equivalent provision in Education Law
section 2023-a, covering transfers between school districts and local
governments. Without this change, school districts would now bear the
additional burden of paying these claims within a tax levy cap that
did not previously contemplate such liabilities.

This bill is a technical correction which would provide for the
equivalent treatment of school districts, as compared with other
similarly situated special assessing units with respect to the
allocation and adjustment process.

PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
None.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to the state.

EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after
it shall have become a law.