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Who cares
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Sponsors
3 Co-sponsors
History
- Referred to education
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the education law, in relation to supplemental impact aid grants
Purpose
This bill changes the education law to provide for supplemental impact aid grants to school districts, based on the assessed value of cemeteries within the district.
Summary of provisions
Section 1: amends section 3641 of the education law by adding subdivision 17, which would provide financial assistance to school districts that have experienced a significant reduction of the value of taxable property due to the presence of cemeteries in the district, as well as a mechanism for certifying the amount for each school district and a payment date to each district of July 1.
Section 2: sets the effective date.
Justification
Since a large percentage of school funding comes from local property taxes, some school districts are struggling to properly fund educational programs. These districts, which contain an exceptional amount of cemetery land, do not benefit from the same amount of property taxes. This is because cemetery land is tax exempt land through Section 446 of the real property tax law and that exemption includes the payment of property taxes used for school district funding. While this is a well-founded principle, it also hurts some education funding because school districts with numerous and/or large cemeteries are not receiving funds based on their assessed value. In effect, school districts with many cemeteries within their boundaries are penalized for not having the land counted towards school property taxes. This legislation removes the penalty incurred by school districts with cemeteries by establishing state supplemental impact aid grants valued at one hundred percent of the tax exemption provided to cemeteries. Payments made to school districts are NOT a new tax on cemeteries, and do NOT affect their tax exempt status. Supplemental impact grants are provided directly from the state's General Fund. These payments will better provide funding parity between school districts with a disproportionately large amount of cemetery land, versus those without.
In order to qualify for this impact aid, a district must have a reimbursement over a set threshold, which ensures that the districts most severely affected by the presence of non-taxed land will benefit from this program. Additionally, while other classes of non-taxed land exist, cemeteries are unique in that they are perpetually exempt from taxes. That land can never be redeveloped for commercial or residential use to contribute to school taxes. Therefore, this state aid is appropriate to best respect and protect those cemeteries, as well as ensure adequate resources and aid for children's educational needs.
Legislative history
New Bill.
Fiscal implications
8 million EFFECTIVE DATE : This act shall take effect immediately.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.