This morning's Ithaca Journal opinion page has a letter from Hans and Doris Fuchs of Freeville wondering how their school taxes skyrocketed - "more than 150 percent higher than last year's bill." They've heard that "Star and Enhanced Star" were reduced this year, though I don't believe I've heard any such thing in the triumphant mailings from our legislators. Anyone know?
The Journal's editorial writes about hopes for Community Building Works, Inc.. It sounds to me like they'll just be in Ithaca, but I hope they'd also look around out here for possibilities.
There's also an article on the "I Live New York" summit held yesterday in Cortland to address Upstate's economy. I wrote a bit about this at The Albany Project, and there's some more there too.
One general thing I worry about in these efforts is their heavy emphasis on young professionals - though at least this one also included farmers. I know that keeping manufacturing jobs here is difficult, but I have to wonder whether talking constantly about keeping young professionals is a smart path to keep a broader economy growing.
Posted by simon at September 19, 2007 12:37 PM in Ithaca Journal , Upstate , public finance
From the Schenectady Gazette: "Unlike last year, when taxpayers received a flat amount based on their county of residence, this year’s refund takes into consideration income, the tax rate of the respective school district and the property’s assessed value." The expectation is that the rebate will go up this year for most households, not down. Since Spitzer's STAR has an income cap, you would expect people with incomes over $235K to be affected adversely while the rest of us do as well as before. However, this chart http://www.hvpropertytaxreform.org/star_forecast/ indicates that basic STAR exemptions and the benefits that accrue from them are declining. STAR is a shell game; the proof is that I can't find any real data to answer the Fuchs's question.
I'm wondering "young professional what?" Isn't there a limit to how many services we can sell to each other? How many accountants, lawyers, even doctors and teachers can we support if we're not actually making anything? Sounds like the farmers are our best bet.