Reconfiguration and Property values
What factors contribute to the value of your home? A lot has been said about property values declining because we are closing schools. How can you quantify that? Outside of the number of bedrooms and quality of the home construction, let’s examine some of the main factors in attracting perspective buyers:
- Low real estate taxes;
- Quality of the school district;
- Breadth and depth of programs;
- Innovative and progressive planning for the future;
- Neighborhoods, ease of commute.
I do not discredit the proximity of your home to a particular school, but in general, perspective buyers are buying a school district. The quality of the entire district is the ultimate selling point.
So let’s look at Mineola:
- The school district has one of the lowest tax rates in Nassau County. Much of that can be attributed to our large commercial tax base. The reconfiguration plan seeks to stabilize the tax levy at or near 2.5% for a five year period.
- We are closing schools to preserve programs. It is our full intention to continue to offer the programs we currently do AND enhance student learning with innovative programs. A good example of that is our iPad initiative. We are the first school district to implement a widespread distribution of interactive technology. Other districts have already inquired how they can replicate it. It is these types of programs that will attract parents to Mineola. The same holds true for our implementation of NWEA, which will directly help individual student achievement.
- Neighborhoods will remain essentially unchanged. If we rent a facility it will be to a school. We will retain the use of the fields and playgrounds for residents. The vacant schools will be used when your children are in school, and they will be available to your children when they come home from school.
The current bond proposal delivers the most streamlined cost effective school district possible. It seeks to stabilize tax levies in the worst economy in decades. More importantly it preserves our current educational program and allows us to initiate new innovative programs for children. Please remember that all of our neighboring school districts will struggle with the same financial issues that we have and they will have fewer options to deal with it. I believe all of these factors will make Mineola a very attractive community for perspective buyers.
Dear Mr. Duffy,
Thank you for the macroeconomics lesson! Boy, I’m glad that our school taxes have no bearing on the viability of the businesses in our school district. I feel relieved knowing that when I see empty businesses that school taxes had no bearing on them closing. Actually, I’m not relieved. I’ve taken the time to talk to merchants that I know and real estate taxes of which school taxes are the greatest percentage are severely impacting the profitability and viability of businesses that as you said are in a recessionary period. I find it interesting that you said my comments were self-serving and laughable. The merchants I’ve spoken to aren’t laughing! When business is booming, most people take taxes in stride. In a down economy – property taxes especially escalating taxes during a period when revenues are declining severely impact a business. I suggest that you talk to some of the merchants about how they feel about their school tax increases over the past years, the impact on their business, and their need to file tax certiorari claims to try to reduce their tax burden. Also look at some tax records online of commercial properties in the area and just estimate how much they have to sell to just pay their taxes. You might be surprised – I was. I know we have lower residential school taxes than other districts because of our commercial base but I would like to see statistics from Dr Nagler concerning our commercial properties compared to other districts. I’ve attended a number of school board meetings and we never mention the impact of taxes on the business community. They are not represented and it’s a dirty little secret that no one talks about – yet they provide a significant portion of the taxes collected.
Now that you’ve got my attention, I’d like to discuss a few of the other points in your post. You aren’t the first parents in this district having their children bussed. When Cross was closed our children went to Meadow Drive from Mineola. We were the second furthest house from the school. I’ve been a little sarcastic with my comments but I understand your concerns on this. Meadow was never a neighborhood school for us but the kids got a good education. That’s what it is all about. You’ll find that they are more resilient than we are. Personally, I rather see programs stay intact rather than buildings.
You also called the proposal an “experiment”. We already cluster kids in pre-K, K and 6 through high school. Other districts are already clustering at the elementary level. I give the Superintendent and Board credit for trying to develop a creative solution to providing a more efficient and effective school district. After listening to the presentations and discussing clustering with my daughter, I am a believer in the clustering model. My youngest daughter, a graduate of Meadow Drive, is a reading specialist in a K-2 cluster school. We have discussed clustering and her education at Meadow compared to a clustered model. She is pro cluster because it allows a developmentally appropriate educational environment, allows specialists to concentrate on specific grade levels and provides consistency and sharing of ideas among teachers and specialists on a daily basis to meet educational needs.
As you said in my macroeconomics lesson, “much of the world is in the middle of the greatest recession in years”. Included in the group affected are many of the members of our own community. Unfortunately during these periods we all need to make compromises. A few years ago, I looked online at the cost per student at a number of Long Island schools. There was a direct correlation between students per building and the overall cost per student. The more efficient (lower cost per student) school districts, many of which were leading academic districts, had a higher number of students per building. Let’s keep the educational programs and consolidate the buildings!
Sorry Dr.Nagler but once again I couldn’t disagree with you more. Real estate taxes are a concern but I don’t think people just look to see if the taxes are “low”. Like anything else they want bang for their buck. Many people are willing to pay a bit more to be in a higher valued district as their taxes are generally offset by an increased home value
I know for my wife and myself we would NEVER have bought in this district if we knew our children would be spending their whole academic careers on a bus travelling to the other side of the district. The first thing we looked at was the overall academic scores and we had some trepidation about buying here. Never once did we worry about the programs offered in high school. We moved here when our children were young 3 and 5. Not that the programs aren’t important but I was and am more concerened with them learing the 3 R’s.
You can offer the greatest programs in the world but if your children can’t read and write they are not going to get into elite universities anyway. If this bond does pass and this educational “experiment” fails then the programs won’t matter much. Then the losses in home values will never be regained from the meager per homeowner tax savings.
As for Mr Ulend’s comments that business are closing because of shool taxes, I find that a to be very misleading, self serving and a bit laughable. The fact that our entire nation and much of the world is in the middle of the greatest recession in years has much more to do with businesses closing than school taxes. Dr. Nagler’s statements that Mineola UFSD has some of the lowest school taxes in the county refute the statement that taxes are causing business to close.
That is why i continue to say Just VOTE NO!
Please read today’s Newsday and find out how bad the tax situation REALLY is in Nassau. Even when our BOE kept the tax levy at 2.5%, the county’s school tax rate went up 23.31% in Mineola. This was due to the decrease in assessed value in the district. Homes which did not see a severe decrease in value will be hit hardest by the school tax rate increase. Unfortunately, we have little or no control over Nassau’s flawed system.
What we do have control over is our own spending. If we are to cut into the 80% gorilla that is salary and benefits, we need to reduce staff. If not, next years budget will fail and our kids will suffer losses far worse than moving into the Middle or High schools early, or playing on a rooftop playground. Austerity budgets will become the norm and they will lose their sports, music, drama, transportation and every program our 12th grade students list on their college resumes. Those resumes are a big part of what gets them accepted into the elite universities we have just begun to see them accepted to.
Do you want the district to continue sending kids to Columbia, Harvard, Cornell, Johns Hopkins……..
Or
Nassau CC?
Prospective home buyers would choose the former.
Read the article at:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/school-taxes-swing-wildly-as-home-values-decline-1.2398861
If you really want to ruin the residential values do nothing as has been recommended and see the commercial base continue to erode. Ride through the commercial areas and see the number of vacant storefronts. If we continue to milk the commercial base to keep the status quo the more you will see vacant buildings and tax certiori challenges.
As the commercial tax base shrinks through tax certiori challenges and as more mandatory charges are required to meet pension and health costs in addition to the normal budgetary increases the more our absolute taxes will rise. Higher taxes and vacant commercial buildings will ruin our property values! Reducing the number of schools but keeping the programs intact will not reduce our property values!
Thank you for the explanation of the taxes. I will direct my concerns to nassau county.
Last years tax levy increase was 2.5% the year before it was 2.48%. The districts contractual obligations (wages, pension, health benefits) go up over 5% each year. In the absence of controlling those costs we are closing schools to streamline personnel. By doing that each year for the next two years we project a stable tax levy on 2.5%. As for your own personal tax increase the school district does not assess that. We tell the county the total amount of money to collect. The county then determines how much to charge each individual homeowner and business. When a district states the tax levy increase it is not what each home will pay it is the total amount of the school budget that we need to tax the homeowners for.
I’m curious how voting on this bond will keep the tax increase at 2.5 percent. As of October 1 my school tax rate per 100 asessed value just increased aproximately 20 plus percent from 452 per 100 to 558 per hundred. I know the school budget vote was for about a 5 percent increase. Why should I believe the school boards claims?
Closing three schools and preserving programs will enhance property values as opposed to continuing with the status quo. If these changes are defeated on October 26, our budgets will reach the point where fixed income residents cannot approve the 5%+ annual tax levy increases.
Once that occurs, the very programs that make Mineola Schools what they are will disappear. Music, marching band, drama, sports and of course, transportation will all be lost in an austerity budget. The mandated salary and benefits will, of course still be paid.
Gone will be:
Top School in the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth for 2009
NAMM- Best Communities for Music Education in America
2009 Marching Band NYSFBC State Champions
Drama, soccer, football, summer music, jazz to name a few
Take away the programs and your home values will certainly plummet. Protect the tax base and you protect the taxpayer, who will respond by passing the budgets. Had this year’s budget failed we would have been faced with an impossible task of maintaining programs without being able to raise the tax levy. This was due to a zero cost of living index. Next year’s outlook is worse. Ask somebody on social security what their COLA was this year and you’ll find out it was 0%. No increase in income and they will remember that come the next budget vote.
This is about a lot more than your neighborhood school, roof top playgrounds, 5th and 8th grade moves. This is about keeping the programs that make this district what it is. If the majority of the community (retired) can no longer afford to support our schools we will live with austerity budgets for the foreseeable future. Once we lose the programs, they’ll never come back with the quality they enjoy today.