What's happening
This bill allows school districts to receive additional building aid for debt service related to financing tax certiorari costs.
Why it matters
Helps school districts manage large, unexpected tax refund obligations. When a school district loses a tax certiorari case (where a property owner successfully challenges their tax assessment), the resulting refund can be enormous, sometimes exceeding the district’s annual spending. This bill allows districts to get extra state aid if they need to take out bonds to cover such refunds, helping them avoid financial disruption.
Reduces the local burden of debt service for tax certiorari bonds. By providing building aid for the debt service on these specific bonds, the state shares the cost with local taxpayers, rather than forcing the district to absorb it all through cuts or higher taxes.
Targets only the most severe cases. The extra aid applies only when the tax certiorari bond is larger than the district’s previous year’s general fund expenditures, ensuring the assistance is reserved for districts facing truly outsized financial shocks—not routine tax challenges.
Requires state oversight and documentation. Districts must submit detailed paperwork to the state education commissioner for approval, promoting accountability and ensuring that only legitimate, necessary debt service expenses receive additional aid.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Increase School Debt Aid
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
1 Multi-sponsor
History
- Referred to education
- Referred to education
Full text
1 pageUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
7540
2017-2018 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
May 1, 2017
Introduced by M. of A. ZEBROWSKI, SKOUFIS -- read once and referred to the Committee on Education
AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to building aid for approved expenditures for debt service for tax certiorari financing
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section 3602 of the education law is amended by adding a new subdivision 6-i to read as follows:
6-i. Building aid for approved expenditures for debt service for tax certiorari financing. In addition to the apportionments payable to a school district pursuant to subdivision six of this section, beginning with debt service in the two thousand seventeen-two thousand eighteen school year and thereafter, the commissioner is hereby authorized to apportion to any school district additional building aid pursuant to this subdivision for its approved debt service expenditures for financing the cost of a tax certiorari, where the total value of the bond exceeds the total general fund expenditures for the school district for the year prior to the year in which the school district first receives bond proceeds. In order to have such debt service expenditures approved, the school district shall submit to the commissioner, in a form he or she prescribes, documentation relating to the issuance of such bond, including but not limited to the original tax certiorari, the amortization schedule of such bond, and any other documentation deemed necessary. Provided, however, that in the event it refunds the original bond at any point, the school district shall provide such updated documentation as required by the commissioner, who shall adjust the annual approved expenditures accordingly. Such aid shall equal the product of the sum of (1) the building aid ratio defined pursuant to paragraph c of subdivision six of this section plus (2) one-tenth (0.1) multiplied by the actual approved debt service expenditures incurred in the base year pursuant to this subdivision.
§ 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD10951-01-7
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.