The-Leader_2006-02-02

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T'be Co-mmunity Newspaper
Tbursday, February 2, 2006
MAYOR BILL GLACKEN, right, represents Freepprt at tlie National Conference of Mayors midwinter meeting.
Tax relief souglit
Freeport seeks federal funding
by Douglas Finlay and Laura Schofer
Governor George F. Pataki recently vis­ited Long Island to unveil a new $600 mil­lion "STAR-Plus" property tax relief plan that would provide homeowners with a new $400 direct STAR-Plus property tax rebate check, increase STAR benefits for senior homeowners and advance new incentives for school districts to keep school property taxes in check.
The new plan is a key component of the governor's 2006-07 Executive Budget, which he introduced in Albany.
"In 19711 proposed and fought to enact the STAR Program to provide homeown­ers real relief from school property taxes and it has been a success. So far STAR has provided nearly $18 million in unprece­dented savings to homeowners on Long Island, and across the state," Governor Pataki said.
"However, in many cases the STAR benefit we provided New Yorkers has been undercut by school districts which, despite record state aid increases, continue to increase their spending and taxes at lev­els that far exceed the rate of inflation."
What Governor Pataki didn't say was
that state aid for Nassau County schools, at around 16 percent of the school's budg­et, is the lowest in the state. Furthermore, state aid is still well below the amount it was before 1990 When aid was about 21 percent of the budget.
Millions helped
"STAR is an outstanding program that has helped millions of New Yorkers and this year let's make it even better," added the governor.
Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray said, "On behalf of residents of the Town of Hempstead I want to thank Governor Pataki for continuing to provide real property tax relief to our homeown­ers. The new STAR-Plus taxpayer rebates and cost-of-living adjustments to the STAR property tax exemption program will substantially increase school tax relief for homeowners throughout our area."
The governor's plan hopes to provide New York families and seniors immediate relief from property tax escalation by addressing two significant challenges.
First, the STAR exemption provided to New York's seniors under the law that cre­ated Governor Pataki's STAR program in 1997 has not been indexed for inflation.
Freeport Mayor Bill Glacken, along with Mayors Gene Murray of Rockville Centre and Wayne Hall of Hempstead Village, attended the recent midwinter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C.
During the conference the three local officials expressed their concerns over the amount of funds to be distributed through the Community Development Block Grant Program, a federal funding program to localities, which suffered from cuts in the 2006 federal budget, and is expected to be reduced again by 10 percent in fiscal year 2007. '
"These grants provide much-needed assistance to a variety of local pro­grams," explained Mayor Glacken,
The governor's plan would protect seniors from making indexing retroac­tive so that every "senior who gets STAR will see a significantly higher benefit, than last year. Under the governor's plan, senior STAR savings would be protected from the impact of inflation, by enacting yearly increases'to seniors' STAR savings.
For example, in the upcoming 2006-
"including daycare, nutrition, and the' rehabilitation and winterization of houses owned by elderly or disabled residents who could not otherwise afford the repairs. The money is also used to help fund downtown revital-; ization projects."
The program is run by the Freeport Community Development Agency! and is funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development' through the Nassau County Consortium.
The mayors are concerned thatj President George Bush will include another round of cuts to the program' in his latest budget proposal, further' reducing the money available for local assistance.
07 school year, in Nassau County the current $113,700 enhanced exemptioil for income-eligible seniors would be increased - from $113,700 to $129,160. - to reflect cost-of-living increases. Similar cost-of-living adjustments would be made automatically in future years. A similar cost-of-living adjust­ment has been made for Suffolk seniors
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