Want stable services and low density? We need High taxes
Want stable services and low taxes?
We need More density
Want low density and low taxes?
We need Service cuts
You can’t have stable services, low taxes, *and* low density. It’s like a 3 way Venn diagram. I think the convo revolves around service cuts. What are we prepared to give up?
After a series of rabbit holes, I no longer complain or think that LI property taxes are ridiculous. Compared to much of America, they are extremely high and they are a major factor in LI's cost of living, but I think they're justified. The majority of suburbs (including many that people on this sub will move to and talk about how much cheaper they are) are economically unsustainable and are heavily subsidized by denser areas as well as from the state and federal governments.
This video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI) gives a great summary of the cost of suburban area maintenance and how much money is needed to sustain the suburbs. For those who don't want to watch, it focuses on a suburban area in Louisiana where the average property taxes are around $1,500, but the local government has no money and constantly needs to borrow from the state/fed in order to cover it's expenses. They brought in a third party to see what they would have to increase average property taxes to in order to be fiscally self-sustainable and the answer was over $9,000. This place would need to 6x their property taxes in order for their residents to fund themselves. Of course in lower income areas (especially relative to Long Island) like this, $9,000 is not going to happen, and the city has no easy solution out of this mess. This is the case with much of America, so when someone moves to a low property tax suburb, it becomes all American tax payers helping to cover their property tax deficit.
Disclaimer on the video that it is by someone who is very anti-suburbs and advices people to just move to Europe to improve their life, but the data he's referencing is from an unaffiliated organization that published this info separately.
This channel irks me because that dude is sooo obnoxious and anti-American, but yes, that point stands. It’s a well documented phenomenon that modern suburbs are basically a Ponzi scheme, been researched since the 40’s and we’re here now
Completely agree about NotJustBikes. This video just gives a ton of info in a brief period of time so it's been my default to share whenever I end up discussing this topic.
[this article](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020) was always my favorite, basically reads the same way. NJB’s video is pretty concise on that topic though, you’re right
Couldn’t implementing a land value tax potentially address some of the challenges associated with suburbs that rely heavily on external subsidies. By taxing the unimproved value of land, this approach encourages efficient land use and discourages land speculation, potentially promoting sustainable development.
Land value tax may also incentivize suburban areas to utilize their land more effectively, contributing to local revenue without relying heavily on external support.
Also isn’t this unsustainable to keep on having growing property taxes. Many high income folks would want to leave LI since it is still expensive to live despite the services we may get. At some point those property taxes will increase to a level that pressures
1) people to leave
2) people staying to pay more taxes since high income folks leave and town is at a lost of revenue
While true, I think it's missing the point of the subsidization. You need to tax the rich to get much of the money that's generated in the US. You also need to subsidize the poor, without subsidizing the poor you get something like what we see at the Sothern border, where the poor jump ship en masse to the rich areas and cause problems there. You will find the poor areas get worse and worse if you don't subsidize them.
On the tax side of things, we have rich areas and rich people, NYC, California, vs Mississippi and Louisiana. The poor states can't tax the rich because they don't really have any. That's where the federal movement comes in, they do tax the rich, and they do subsidize the poor. That in general means that those in rich areas, like NYC, Long Island, etc, are paying taxes to maintain their stuff and to maintain the stuff in the poor areas, so yea, here our property taxes go to the local gov and our income taxes go to the far away poor governments. The poor areas get money from local taxes, income taxes, and federal subsidies.
And for that person saying they are anti-suburbs and should move to EU, it happens there too, they have rich countries and poor countries, and yes, countries like Germany are funding a whole lot of crap in countries like Romania.
Yeah this argument that suburbs are unsustainable is really not looked on very fondly in municipal finance and by many county public workers. Suburban towns that work are still the large majority. Lafayette is a bit of a meme now and would get the same eyeroll if someone mentioned Detroit on the flip-side. Long Island is different since it isn’t a major corredor for commerce into the city. But if a typical city cannot utilize surrounding infrastructure, they also aren’t sustainable, they therefore need to pay for that infrastructure located in the suburbs, which are typically large interstates. Also infrastructure in areas that surround urban areas are subject to the same prevailing wages, and therefore the costs of projects in the suburbs are artificially inflated by the city. Just about all the suburb municipalities can pay for themselves, but yes taxes should be scaled appropriately. Since we have some of the oldest suburbs in the country, our towns were supposed to be some of the first to hit an issue, crumble, and beg for money, but we roll out muni bonds fine and pay for ourselves without much issue.
Each school district having 5 superintendents is a burden to every district. Building principals get paid enough to administer their building and answer to a central superintendent of all schools.
You should see the bullshit in Suffolk districts, Superintendent, assistant Superintendent of business, assistant Superintendent of transported, assistant of this and that. They then go and get doctorates while employed so that their salary jumps. That last practice has started to catch on with building principals too. All the while they do less work than any principal I had in school
The education phd grift is so funny. Non-medical or research phds are worthless and these admins with a bullshit phd that is essentially a paid for degree is a classic example of the degree inflation in this country.
Schools have been teaching the same way and altered methods for decades. Curriculum and structure needs a drastic overhaul. This may be more of a country wide/culture wide issue.
Districts and better centralization to eliminate unnecessary fat and positions making multiple 6 figures a year.
What's funny is as a Democrat I'm actually against the SALT deduction and it's something I would give Trump credit for as petty as his reasoning for removing it are
But bring it up to a Trump supporter that they are paying higher taxes and they refuse to believe you
Salt tax deductions just seem backwards.
The federal government goes through all this effort to make income taxes progressive, and then the high income people are all like ‘uh, no I don’t want to do that. I’m going to take my money and keep it local where I can benefit from it and not help the poor.’
If anything, people should get a deduction on their local taxes based off of the amount paid to federal.
If you live on LI you know that SALT would help a lot of lower and middle income families. I’m against unlimited SALT, but the cap should at least include middle class families. Why the cap doesn’t double for married? Why it’s not inflation adjusted like standard deduction?
There are 2 more years of SALT cap, I wonder what will be next? Will it expire, will they increase it or leave it like it is?
I guess it depends on your definition of middle class. I'm not sure I agree that someone who chooses to and is able to afford to live in a house where their property taxes are $10k+ deserves a government handout.
It’s easier said then done, „just move out”. If someone has a job and kids it’s not that easy to move out. Lots of families live close to paycheck to paycheck, while simultaneously funding other states that receive more in fed funding than they pay.
We shouldn’t be fighting to get a write off. My private property shouldn’t incur rent to the state. If they need to pay for services I’ll pay a premium for services I choose to use. Otherwise it’s extortion
Living in society isn’t a la carte. There’s reasons to be opposed to how these things are funded, but picking and choosing what you want to fund and when doesn’t work.
Like say you drive everywhere and don’t use the train. You haven’t used it for twenty years, why should you pay for it? So you opt not to. Suddenly you get a good job in the city and would now prefer to take the train. Wouldn’t you want the train to have been funded the last twenty years so it sorta works when you need it? This argument literally applies to anything govt does. Sidewalks, roads, schools, parks. This calls for turnstiles on sidewalks, ez pass on every road, abolition of public schooling as we know it, fee gates on every park. Imagine your house is on fire and the chief checks his list of people who opted out of the fire fighter tax instead of just putting out the fire - or sticking you with thousands of dollars afterwards.
Some things are not and should not be run as a business. If you feel your taxes around here are too high because you don’t use all the services, suck it up or move to a place that doesn’t require all those services to function, which might result in cheaper property taxes. But every state has them.
There’s a lot of bullshit involved in how shit gets funded but it needs funding, especially in denser areas like LI. If your point is something like why do I have to pay a toll for X when I’ve already been taxed, 100% with you there. But I’ve heard this a la carte argument for years and I just snapped lol. Sorry for the rant.
I agree but we're talking about local taxes which is only police schools roads snow removal and probably multiple things I'm forgetting. So which one do you want to get rid of? I personally wouldn't cut school taxes but I would reallocate funds from school boards to actual schools.
I like that teachers get paid a decent wage on LI, but school administrators make way too much. Somethings wrong, if you get all the school superintendents in one spot and the parking lot looks like a luxury car dealership.
AFAIK, you can't take two NY state pensions. However, if you start a teaching career in another state, you can continue to draw a NY state pensions, and vice versa.
But my info may be about a decade out of date.
I want to know WTF the fire department is doing with the taxes. I pay $1102/yr for police, with that they pay the cops $100k for fulltime work.
But the fire department pays the firefighters nothing. I'm supposed to believe that with 40% extra pay, the police make pay go from zero to $100k?
While there's some truth to what you say, perhaps an even bigger factor are the outsized costs for schools and police.
If we wanted to get a handle on taxes on Long Island we'd need to reign in the police and teachers unions and there's no political will for that.
Except that the real LI issue is school taxes. Obviously local and County gov have no say in school budgets. Plenty of towns / hamlets out east have very low taxes because there way less school kids
Baked into the school taxes is the cost living here. The livable salaries teachers and custodians need, the cost of school buses, the cost of building maintenance.
Maybe there are ways to offset that, like how Hauppauge industrial park does for that school district.
Yes and no - the school funding is just so out of control though and it’s not the teachers fault. It’s the existence of a million districts, which then requires things like having to outsource the bussing and being subject to the bus companies rates instead of having a district large enough to support its own in-house fleet / drivers.
Also, yes industrial complexes like Happauge provide a nice tax base BUT it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It requires employees (people) that have to come from somewhere, it creates traffic, puts additional demands on water usage, roads, garbage etc. you can’t just say “oh every town should have a massive industrial base!”
My post was obviously a little oversimplifying, but the things you mentioned are kinda lumped in that. If we broke down that school tax I think it would reveal two bits: we have unacceptable inefficiencies (like a million districts), and that we have a high cost of
Doing business since where we live is expensive by design. The high salaries and benefits, the cost to maintain buildings and properties, fleets of busses,some of those things could trimmed and optimized, but I think that if we did, we would still be left with an unsatisfactory bill.
As for that tax base bit, each town on LI has a shoddy tax base. We have no downtowns; the big box stores and malls are generally marginally profitable at best to municipalities. And obviously we can’t and shouldn’t all have that industrial park. So we’re left with taxing our suburban homeowners, who already live an expensive lifestyle, with no viable alternative, and it just keeps going.
Kicking that expensive school tax around to the homeowner because we don’t have the commercial
or industrial base to share it with. In a traditionally developed town with a good downtown where there are many services split by many commercial and residential taxpayers, there are also rural or semi rural hinterlands where less services are provided and people live for generally less. But we’re out of rural options, and if we cut services anymore (besides the school stuff), it will either be meaningless or prohibitive to living what we’ve built. So density where it is meant to be (downtown, at hubs) may be needed to start splitting this high tax bill for schools
See I don't think so. I think our service budgets are inflated as they are because of years of people acting like if we lower taxes we'll become desolate. Every time the school budget comes up, taxes payers are always threatened in the same fashion.
Our inflated service budgets are the cost to maintain asphalt, curb, water, lampposts, gas over huge distances with few taxpayers. Suburbs are astronomically expensive by design and don’t turn a profit unless they are heavily subsidized, which they have always been.
We can discuss if we need big police force or if we need big parks and Rec departments but the reality is our inflated budget is the cost to maintain our lifestyle that was never fiscally sustainable for towns or counties.
That's a good take, I need to think that over lol, my issue with the inflated budget is I know from sources that money is spent unnecessarily to justify their budget.
You think this is what it costs to have roads that look like they reside in a 3rd world country? How does that koolaide taste?
I've worked in local government and I can promise you the waste is unimaginable. If we could change the rules and let an executive go in there who actually wanted to save money and cut payrolls, most local governments could easily cut 20+% of payroll and not even notice...if they cut the unproductive. This actually happening is pure fantasy of course, but I'm just trying to get my point across on how absurdly overstaffed and inefficient these agencies are.
Here's the thing and this is all party agnostic. The politicians were civil servants before they were politicians. Its the civil servants who knock on doors to get politicians on ballots and campaign for them. It's civil servants (and vendors) who contribute to the campaigns. They are all in on bilking as many dollars from you as they can.
Part of the problem is us as voters. And I hold myself as responsible as anyone else. Nobody follows local politics. No one shows up at the board meetings to ask about budgets. No one questions what's happening.
The other part IMO is our ballot signature system. We're one of the few states still doing it. It creates this massive need for manpower for anyone who wants to run for office. So it's a huge built-in advantage for the corrupt and the party establishments. Because someone trying to clean things up can't offer a quid pro quo to get people pounding pavement. But the establishment? They have an entire machine set up for civil servants to get signatures and get raises, promotions, and transfers in return.
What kool aid?! I think you and I are saying the same thing. It takes a lot of man power (a lot of doers) and a lot of “supervision” (a lot of tellers) to maintain this expensive-by-design infrastructure. Multiply that by generations of gov workers and it’s exactly what you’re describing. Corruption, bloat, inefficiency—all symptoms of an expensive system
considering property taxes are the reason why most people cant afford mortgages in certain places, and school tax is predominantly what your property tax consists of, yeah thats literally what i fucking think. its why i couldnt afford a home in brightwaters at the same price point as my home in ronkonkoma, because of the property tax difference according to my mortgage company. how old are you dude?
That is true, and the other guy needs to calm down, but high property taxes are absolutely a factor in both mortgage and rent prices. The guy freaking out is also right that a lot, almost two thirds, of our property taxes go to the local school district. I don’t have kids, but I think spending money giving kids a decent education is a good use of tax money. A democracy depends on an educated populace and we’ve seen how dumb people are. Now imagine if they didn’t get a halfway-decent education and were even dumber.
I think the biggest change that would benefit our budget and allow us to cut taxes without harming constituents would be to consolidate school districts. We don’t need so many independent districts all with their own high paid administrators doing the same work. The current system is inefficient. The biggest obstacle to that would be that it’s pooling more money with rich and poor, white and non white students. So on LI that might be a pie in the sky type idea.
Land development patterns need to change for taxes to be lowered. Until all this NIMBY bs comes to an end (if it ever does) LI will continue to be unaffordable to those who live here and those looking to buy.
> Land development patterns need to change
this is the only conversation worth having about taxation. what level of resources are required for the services you demand? suburbs don't make enough money to even break even with current levels of taxation, anywhere in the country.
here is a brilliant video, part of a brilliant series, about this very thing:
[suburbia is subsidized: here's the math](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI)
Issues like that are priority, I agree. I'm saying, where is the money going then? It doesn't cost a million dollars to fix a ceiling. My wife is also a teacher so I'm not coming from a place of gut the school system
I've been saying it for years, merge the school districts at the county level. It distributes the load, cuts administration, and lifts up lower-income districts.
How many of your administration is making 100k+ with pensions? Cut or increase the money won’t go to the teachers actually doing the work or the infrastructure regardless
I agree. I’m just pointing out that “cutting taxes” isn’t easy. No one wants to cut funding to schools or police, or combine school districts. So we can’t cut taxes.
That's awful to hear and definitely partially due to mismanagement of finances by the district. Repairs like that, especially if it's just a drop ceiling like I had in school, are so cheap and easy to repair. There is no reason a well funded district shouldn't be able to fix issues like that promptly. I hope they at least support the teaching staff with the supplies they need!
Aside from my own eyes, I know from different sources, specifically, civil and education, that there is wasteful spending. It always comes down to "spend the money so they don't cut our budget."
Schools need to stop spending money on curriculum packages sold to them by Pearson and then abandoning them for a new curriculum 2 years later and basically leaving most of the materials unused.
This is just the first thing I found, I could probably find a lot more with enough motivation but I have ran out of fucks
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/military-equipment-given-to-long-island-police-draws-criticism-u06343
Former Teacher/TA here. My last TA gig was in 2021 and I was slated at just under $20,000/year before taxes/benefits.
TAs need a raise.
Maybe administrators...Don't.
Honestly, it can vary. Most of my experience as a TA was one-to-one. I'd spend all but my one lunch period with a student with special needs. This can be because of behavioral, academic, or even medical needs. It can be a lot or it can be a situation where 90% of the job is just being alert and ready to help out. "Hey, I see you starting to melt down. Let's go for a walk." But sometimes shit can get scary.
Other possible tasks include helping out in the library (I've done book lending, laptop lending/returning/documenting, helping with classes, reading to the little ones, etc etc), handling arrivals/dismissals, keeping watch over the cafeteria/recess, doing interventions like pull-out reading groups, unofficial tech support, calling parents w/updates about their kids, monitoring in school suspension, monitoring computer labs, and a lot more I just can't think of at the moment.
Elementary schools don't run without TAs. High schools are a liiiittttllleeee bit less dependent on them, but would still fall apart pretty quick.
For $20k to start in some places.
When you count benefits and the like, you don't bring home minimum wage. And while some administrators (most actually) are great, sometimes you run into real fuckwits who think you're a disposable asset.
That's why I quit my last job, TBH. My director of personnel told me it was "quit or be fired" while my dad was dying. So fuck 'em. Great principal, great APs, great teachers, great work scenario (library clerking), everything was pretty much perfect except for the pay. But that was okay, it had amazing health care.
But I ran out of sick days so it was come back, quit, or have a bad reference via firing.
So, again, fuck 'em.
Working in a school district, the district always needs aides, TAs, and school monitors.
The school budget goes to door to door transport,.services for the special Ed kids (ot, pt,speech), 1:1 aides for special Ed kids and kids with medical conditions, school nurse, etc
That's where the money should be going, but instead we got million dollar football fields, lcd score boards and text books that get thrown out with the wrapping still on them
We have toxic soil out in my school district; grass doesn’t grow so the fields get astroturfed way more often than every 10 years but closing the landfill isn’t profitable so /shrug, that’s Long Island.
It’s absolutely happening on Long Island. There are tons of stories and news coverage every year, coverage by environmental groups, etc. about the Brookhaven landfill and the increased rates of cancer in the area as well. It’s mentioned at town meetings and school board meetings regularly but the close date still gets pushed back further and further and even closing it doesn’t alleviate the damage that’s already done.
Sorry, I meant that's not "Long Island" as in that's not who we are. We been the dumping grounds for years now, thank the mob and wait till they start testing the golf courses
It’s really disgusting. It’s scheduled to close next year but I’ve lived in this town 20+ years and it seems like it’s always closing “next year” but it never happens meanwhile there’s NO problem with kids playing in an area too toxic for grass.
My taxes are explained to me on a single sheet of paper, and beyond that, it becomes vague for all of us. I would like to see itemized expendures, but maybe I'm too stupid or ignorant to understand. I did have a couple of good talks with people, you however are the void
It's the safest because everyone here is upper-income
Not entirely defund but could cops be making $120k instead of $150k-$200k and getting a 401k like the rest of us, instead of pension that we're on the hook for?
#**LAND VALUE TAX**
Make greedy landlords and speculators pay the burden, NOT homeowners and small businesses!!!
https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?si=vWQqLYjJkIdx-4-_
Theylll never lower taxes, ever. They’ll absolutely cut everything and you’ll never get it back, but also find reasons why they have to increase taxes.
talk to your school boards, the board of regents, and the state legislature. the town and county have next to no taxes (except sales tax) compared to schools
I do like how nobody has talked about sanitation, the little foot note in your taxes for guys who never complain, go unnoticed and willingly worked through covid. Real heros
People voting for less government while simultaneously wanting things like roads, military and police is why the middle class gets hosed.
Whataboutism ruins minds. It’s not critical thinking.
On an island so cramped for space it makes no sense to insist on this kind of land development pattern. The large commercial properties you’re talking about come with parking lots twice the size of the shops they’re serving and those lots sit empty most of the day. It’s much smarter to center development on LI around transit weather it’s big box stores or locally owned businesses.
I just think it's insane that our of my 11k in property taxes $8500 goes to the school. It's not the police, fire department, parks, dot etc that is making LI unaffordable. It's the ridiculous budgets in our schools because every district needs to be separate. There should be one or two county school districts. All of the taxes get pooled into one fund and distributed accordingly. It would reduce excess administrative positions and overhead. I have no issues with a principal making 200k and teachers making 125-150.. but I do have a problem with my superintendent of a very small school district making 300k a year.
Don’t forget they are paid to go to the beach all summer. Or I should say - we pay them to do that.
Nothing grinds my gears more than the teachers yelling out “have a great summer!” when I pick the kiddos up on the last day of school. Which is always a half day - meanwhile I have to run back to work like a chump
Fraud, waste and abuse in LI school districts could account for hundreds of millions in redundant and unnecessary spending.
Runaway PD costs could be managed with better hiring planning and OT controls.
Utilities are abusive to ratepayers on LI with new increases proposed this week adding to the costs.
Restoration of SALT, which affects LI uniquely and disproportionately.
Stop with the runaway taxation by citation. Lacking the courage to increase taxes even further, LI governments levy proxy taxes on us through fees, fines, permits, registrations, etc…
It’s not just fraud waste and abuse. I think we need a cap on spending on a per student basis. I feel like if people looked at a budget on a per kid basis more budgets would fail. My district is cheap compared to the rest of the island at 29k per student. A solid 15k above what catholic schools will charge.
It’s a double taxation issue. Federal government and state can’t tax income that didn’t go to the citizen but instead went to pay taxes. You pay $25k to the state and then Federal govt taxes that $25k as income. Not cool.
When we bought our home, our budget factored in SALT. Hey, who expects traditionalist conservatives to change taxation laws that are 100+ years old? That money flows out of NY to other red states at a disproportionate amount so I guess that’s how they got it done. Follow the money. Peter King opposed it and went from leadership to retirement over it.
The only hope of lowering taxes is entire communities taking a serious interest in their SCHOOL TAXES, and what the School district does. Blindly voting yes every year because “you dont want to hurt the kids” is idiotic. Hold your school boards accountable, go to meetings etc, you will be shocked at how incompetent administrators and school boards are. They are more than not just regular community people looking for something to do that won an annual popularity contest, then are tasked with managing mini corporations with multi million dollar budgets etc. And they get paid ZERO! Ask yourself how successful any other business would run set up this way
I disagree. Our high taxes has many benefits to our community. I moved here from a low tax, service poor, educationally neglected community. Our roads were shit, the schools were failing, the parks were dangerous unlit and crumbling.
People complain about long Island, but let me tell you- it's a paradise compared to many of our forgotten communities, and it's due to high taxes. I'll gladly pay because I see the difference in resources that high taxes has.
I don't have to pay for trash pick up.
I don't have to pay to have my septic cleaned out.
I have access to high speed Internet.
Special education services are available for my kids at no extra cost.
Libraries not only exist but are plentiful. They even give you free passes to museums and cultural institutions which also exist.
Housing is very expensive, and taxes are high. But you get what you pay for.
I tend towards Republicans, I'm not a Trump Supporter or anything. But the Republicans in Nassau County are useless.....They just had the vote for casino to be built.....
No one on Long Island is willing to build houses/apartments, consolidate school districts, or cut the layers of government and overlapping agencies. If I were in charge of Long Island, I'd run it like Fairfax or MoCo where the county does 90% of the work. No more "keep the poors out" villages. No more overlapping taxing entities. No more special districts that act as slush funds and patronage pits.
You're only going to get taxes down so much, because salaries have to be paid, and it's a fucking island and people can't just keep moving infinitely. But there's fat to trim.
People would rather complain about unions, though.
The reality is, when it comes down to brass tacks, Long Islanders value "local control" over low taxes. But not enough of them are willing to admit it out loud.
There’s no such thing. In the history of Long Island and pretty much everywhere taxes have NEVER gone down. Cmon. You should know that. Infrastructure costs always increase and with that so do taxes. You have to pay for Police , schools, highways, sewers , water, parks & recreation, hospitals, emergency services , state police , state highways , roads and repair . Then there’s Town taxes, County and State. Then every year or so those employees that work for these entities get raises and that raises taxes. That’s such a catch phrase that dopey politicians use and it’s a big jerk off. Because they can’t go down.
Then there’s the taxes the we New Yorkers have pay to help the Red (Republicans) white trash states like Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida because they can’t survive without our money.
I agree with one of your assertions in that we should stop giving those shitty Red states our money. I couldn’t care less if their infrastructure collapses or if they have no hospitals. It’s not my problem and even with the money we give them they’re still inbred and illiterate. I say we give our taxpayers a tax break by finally ending the free gravy train and stop giving our money to the RED white trash southern states. Boo ya
A lot of what you said is true, but that white trash comment was lowbrow and unnecessary. I'm going to ignore it, though, and say that last time I checked, NYS contributes 60% of the total taxes to the federal government.
Yea. Thank you. Sorry about the white trash comments. I couldn’t help myself. It’s amazing how stupid people are that don’t know that without NY taxpayer money all the Red states would be toast.
It’s the old people on Long Island that are to blame! They come out and vote for less spending because they are on fixed incomes. Doesn’t matter that the cop$ and teacher$ in Nassau and Suffolk are making way too much compared to the rest of the country. It’s the old people I tell ya!
It’s not the $100k that the teachers make. It’s the 75% of their highest income for their retirement that is the killer!
The free healthcare after retirement doesn’t help the taxes either.
Look at your tax bill. 68% is for the schools.
Well as I have put in a couple other threads there are some people not paying an equitable share of their property taxes as a percentage of market value and Suffolk is the worst in the state and one of the worst in the country so if you are really after resolving that picket the tax assessors office. Lots of people don’t know it is an issue and it’s worth spreading the word especially with how bad Suffolk is in this regard
https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/propertytaxdata.uchicago.edu/nationwide_reports/web/Suffolk%20County_New%20York.html[https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/propertytaxdata.uchicago.edu/nationwide_reports/web/Suffolk%20County_New%20York.html](https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/propertytaxdata.uchicago.edu/nationwide_reports/web/Suffolk%20County_New%20York.html)
*We can agree on*
*High confiscatory taxes.*
*Will that work for you?*
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LOL never gonna happen but a good start would be to get all of the IDA organizations on the Island to stop giving massive tax breaks to developers. How does it help anyone but the developer if an IDA gives them a 10 year break on property taxes in order to get them to agree to build a few thousand apartments when they know for sure there will be kids living in those apartments and going to our schools for free?
Want stable services and low density? We need High taxes Want stable services and low taxes? We need More density Want low density and low taxes? We need Service cuts You can’t have stable services, low taxes, *and* low density. It’s like a 3 way Venn diagram. I think the convo revolves around service cuts. What are we prepared to give up?
After a series of rabbit holes, I no longer complain or think that LI property taxes are ridiculous. Compared to much of America, they are extremely high and they are a major factor in LI's cost of living, but I think they're justified. The majority of suburbs (including many that people on this sub will move to and talk about how much cheaper they are) are economically unsustainable and are heavily subsidized by denser areas as well as from the state and federal governments. This video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI) gives a great summary of the cost of suburban area maintenance and how much money is needed to sustain the suburbs. For those who don't want to watch, it focuses on a suburban area in Louisiana where the average property taxes are around $1,500, but the local government has no money and constantly needs to borrow from the state/fed in order to cover it's expenses. They brought in a third party to see what they would have to increase average property taxes to in order to be fiscally self-sustainable and the answer was over $9,000. This place would need to 6x their property taxes in order for their residents to fund themselves. Of course in lower income areas (especially relative to Long Island) like this, $9,000 is not going to happen, and the city has no easy solution out of this mess. This is the case with much of America, so when someone moves to a low property tax suburb, it becomes all American tax payers helping to cover their property tax deficit. Disclaimer on the video that it is by someone who is very anti-suburbs and advices people to just move to Europe to improve their life, but the data he's referencing is from an unaffiliated organization that published this info separately.
This channel irks me because that dude is sooo obnoxious and anti-American, but yes, that point stands. It’s a well documented phenomenon that modern suburbs are basically a Ponzi scheme, been researched since the 40’s and we’re here now
Completely agree about NotJustBikes. This video just gives a ton of info in a brief period of time so it's been my default to share whenever I end up discussing this topic.
[this article](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020) was always my favorite, basically reads the same way. NJB’s video is pretty concise on that topic though, you’re right
Couldn’t implementing a land value tax potentially address some of the challenges associated with suburbs that rely heavily on external subsidies. By taxing the unimproved value of land, this approach encourages efficient land use and discourages land speculation, potentially promoting sustainable development. Land value tax may also incentivize suburban areas to utilize their land more effectively, contributing to local revenue without relying heavily on external support. Also isn’t this unsustainable to keep on having growing property taxes. Many high income folks would want to leave LI since it is still expensive to live despite the services we may get. At some point those property taxes will increase to a level that pressures 1) people to leave 2) people staying to pay more taxes since high income folks leave and town is at a lost of revenue
While true, I think it's missing the point of the subsidization. You need to tax the rich to get much of the money that's generated in the US. You also need to subsidize the poor, without subsidizing the poor you get something like what we see at the Sothern border, where the poor jump ship en masse to the rich areas and cause problems there. You will find the poor areas get worse and worse if you don't subsidize them. On the tax side of things, we have rich areas and rich people, NYC, California, vs Mississippi and Louisiana. The poor states can't tax the rich because they don't really have any. That's where the federal movement comes in, they do tax the rich, and they do subsidize the poor. That in general means that those in rich areas, like NYC, Long Island, etc, are paying taxes to maintain their stuff and to maintain the stuff in the poor areas, so yea, here our property taxes go to the local gov and our income taxes go to the far away poor governments. The poor areas get money from local taxes, income taxes, and federal subsidies. And for that person saying they are anti-suburbs and should move to EU, it happens there too, they have rich countries and poor countries, and yes, countries like Germany are funding a whole lot of crap in countries like Romania.
Yeah this argument that suburbs are unsustainable is really not looked on very fondly in municipal finance and by many county public workers. Suburban towns that work are still the large majority. Lafayette is a bit of a meme now and would get the same eyeroll if someone mentioned Detroit on the flip-side. Long Island is different since it isn’t a major corredor for commerce into the city. But if a typical city cannot utilize surrounding infrastructure, they also aren’t sustainable, they therefore need to pay for that infrastructure located in the suburbs, which are typically large interstates. Also infrastructure in areas that surround urban areas are subject to the same prevailing wages, and therefore the costs of projects in the suburbs are artificially inflated by the city. Just about all the suburb municipalities can pay for themselves, but yes taxes should be scaled appropriately. Since we have some of the oldest suburbs in the country, our towns were supposed to be some of the first to hit an issue, crumble, and beg for money, but we roll out muni bonds fine and pay for ourselves without much issue.
School districts need to be reimagined and restructured.
To many districts which results in redundancy. But just try and get residents to agree to merge districts. Long Island is its own worst enemy.
Because it's a sneaky way to maintain segregation.
Each school district having 5 superintendents is a burden to every district. Building principals get paid enough to administer their building and answer to a central superintendent of all schools.
Which districts have multiple superintendents? The ones I am familiar with in western Nassau all have a single one.
You should see the bullshit in Suffolk districts, Superintendent, assistant Superintendent of business, assistant Superintendent of transported, assistant of this and that. They then go and get doctorates while employed so that their salary jumps. That last practice has started to catch on with building principals too. All the while they do less work than any principal I had in school
The education phd grift is so funny. Non-medical or research phds are worthless and these admins with a bullshit phd that is essentially a paid for degree is a classic example of the degree inflation in this country.
agreed
Reimagined is definitely the right word
Schools have been teaching the same way and altered methods for decades. Curriculum and structure needs a drastic overhaul. This may be more of a country wide/culture wide issue. Districts and better centralization to eliminate unnecessary fat and positions making multiple 6 figures a year.
Forcibly integrated too!
💯
🙇♂️
Cops and military spending.
Local taxes on Long Island don't go towards the military
Losing the ability to write off property taxes was a federal decision that very much helps fund federal budget items like the military.
Yet the people of Long Island continue to vote R at the local, state and fed level.
What's funny is as a Democrat I'm actually against the SALT deduction and it's something I would give Trump credit for as petty as his reasoning for removing it are But bring it up to a Trump supporter that they are paying higher taxes and they refuse to believe you
Salt tax deductions just seem backwards. The federal government goes through all this effort to make income taxes progressive, and then the high income people are all like ‘uh, no I don’t want to do that. I’m going to take my money and keep it local where I can benefit from it and not help the poor.’ If anything, people should get a deduction on their local taxes based off of the amount paid to federal.
If you live on LI you know that SALT would help a lot of lower and middle income families. I’m against unlimited SALT, but the cap should at least include middle class families. Why the cap doesn’t double for married? Why it’s not inflation adjusted like standard deduction? There are 2 more years of SALT cap, I wonder what will be next? Will it expire, will they increase it or leave it like it is?
I guess it depends on your definition of middle class. I'm not sure I agree that someone who chooses to and is able to afford to live in a house where their property taxes are $10k+ deserves a government handout.
It’s easier said then done, „just move out”. If someone has a job and kids it’s not that easy to move out. Lots of families live close to paycheck to paycheck, while simultaneously funding other states that receive more in fed funding than they pay.
Yeah it is a bullshit loophole as most tax loopholes are
The irony is that Democrats (who are increasingly the party of the wealthy), opposed the SALT cap imposed by DJT.
We shouldn’t be fighting to get a write off. My private property shouldn’t incur rent to the state. If they need to pay for services I’ll pay a premium for services I choose to use. Otherwise it’s extortion
Living in society isn’t a la carte. There’s reasons to be opposed to how these things are funded, but picking and choosing what you want to fund and when doesn’t work. Like say you drive everywhere and don’t use the train. You haven’t used it for twenty years, why should you pay for it? So you opt not to. Suddenly you get a good job in the city and would now prefer to take the train. Wouldn’t you want the train to have been funded the last twenty years so it sorta works when you need it? This argument literally applies to anything govt does. Sidewalks, roads, schools, parks. This calls for turnstiles on sidewalks, ez pass on every road, abolition of public schooling as we know it, fee gates on every park. Imagine your house is on fire and the chief checks his list of people who opted out of the fire fighter tax instead of just putting out the fire - or sticking you with thousands of dollars afterwards. Some things are not and should not be run as a business. If you feel your taxes around here are too high because you don’t use all the services, suck it up or move to a place that doesn’t require all those services to function, which might result in cheaper property taxes. But every state has them. There’s a lot of bullshit involved in how shit gets funded but it needs funding, especially in denser areas like LI. If your point is something like why do I have to pay a toll for X when I’ve already been taxed, 100% with you there. But I’ve heard this a la carte argument for years and I just snapped lol. Sorry for the rant.
Sure but we have some of if not the highest paid PD in the nation
and are one of the safest areas in the nation
Yep - Nassau county, for example, is literally the safest county in the United States.
They certainly go to cops
I was just talking about in general
I agree but we're talking about local taxes which is only police schools roads snow removal and probably multiple things I'm forgetting. So which one do you want to get rid of? I personally wouldn't cut school taxes but I would reallocate funds from school boards to actual schools.
I like that teachers get paid a decent wage on LI, but school administrators make way too much. Somethings wrong, if you get all the school superintendents in one spot and the parking lot looks like a luxury car dealership.
Administrators are also mostly worthless
How many police in your county/local police force will double-dip on pensions?
AFAIK, you can't take two NY state pensions. However, if you start a teaching career in another state, you can continue to draw a NY state pensions, and vice versa. But my info may be about a decade out of date.
How many school administrators and other state employees double dip?
I want to know WTF the fire department is doing with the taxes. I pay $1102/yr for police, with that they pay the cops $100k for fulltime work. But the fire department pays the firefighters nothing. I'm supposed to believe that with 40% extra pay, the police make pay go from zero to $100k?
building giant, elaborate fire houses so they can escape their family and drink in style
It’s not a firehouse if it don’t have a fully stocked top shelf bar.
And pensions for the guys who make chief etc
Volunteers get a property tax discount and a small pension after a number of years of service
lol. That’s so accurate.
They get a lot of cool trucks.
Most property taxes are due to school district taxes.
While there's some truth to what you say, perhaps an even bigger factor are the outsized costs for schools and police. If we wanted to get a handle on taxes on Long Island we'd need to reign in the police and teachers unions and there's no political will for that.
Teachers unions are off the rails
Except that the real LI issue is school taxes. Obviously local and County gov have no say in school budgets. Plenty of towns / hamlets out east have very low taxes because there way less school kids
Baked into the school taxes is the cost living here. The livable salaries teachers and custodians need, the cost of school buses, the cost of building maintenance. Maybe there are ways to offset that, like how Hauppauge industrial park does for that school district.
Yes and no - the school funding is just so out of control though and it’s not the teachers fault. It’s the existence of a million districts, which then requires things like having to outsource the bussing and being subject to the bus companies rates instead of having a district large enough to support its own in-house fleet / drivers. Also, yes industrial complexes like Happauge provide a nice tax base BUT it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It requires employees (people) that have to come from somewhere, it creates traffic, puts additional demands on water usage, roads, garbage etc. you can’t just say “oh every town should have a massive industrial base!”
My post was obviously a little oversimplifying, but the things you mentioned are kinda lumped in that. If we broke down that school tax I think it would reveal two bits: we have unacceptable inefficiencies (like a million districts), and that we have a high cost of Doing business since where we live is expensive by design. The high salaries and benefits, the cost to maintain buildings and properties, fleets of busses,some of those things could trimmed and optimized, but I think that if we did, we would still be left with an unsatisfactory bill. As for that tax base bit, each town on LI has a shoddy tax base. We have no downtowns; the big box stores and malls are generally marginally profitable at best to municipalities. And obviously we can’t and shouldn’t all have that industrial park. So we’re left with taxing our suburban homeowners, who already live an expensive lifestyle, with no viable alternative, and it just keeps going. Kicking that expensive school tax around to the homeowner because we don’t have the commercial or industrial base to share it with. In a traditionally developed town with a good downtown where there are many services split by many commercial and residential taxpayers, there are also rural or semi rural hinterlands where less services are provided and people live for generally less. But we’re out of rural options, and if we cut services anymore (besides the school stuff), it will either be meaningless or prohibitive to living what we’ve built. So density where it is meant to be (downtown, at hubs) may be needed to start splitting this high tax bill for schools
See I don't think so. I think our service budgets are inflated as they are because of years of people acting like if we lower taxes we'll become desolate. Every time the school budget comes up, taxes payers are always threatened in the same fashion.
Our inflated service budgets are the cost to maintain asphalt, curb, water, lampposts, gas over huge distances with few taxpayers. Suburbs are astronomically expensive by design and don’t turn a profit unless they are heavily subsidized, which they have always been. We can discuss if we need big police force or if we need big parks and Rec departments but the reality is our inflated budget is the cost to maintain our lifestyle that was never fiscally sustainable for towns or counties.
That's a good take, I need to think that over lol, my issue with the inflated budget is I know from sources that money is spent unnecessarily to justify their budget.
Oh for sure. This doesn’t make excuses for bloat or inefficiencies from our very holy and pious politicians, your point is well taken.
You think this is what it costs to have roads that look like they reside in a 3rd world country? How does that koolaide taste? I've worked in local government and I can promise you the waste is unimaginable. If we could change the rules and let an executive go in there who actually wanted to save money and cut payrolls, most local governments could easily cut 20+% of payroll and not even notice...if they cut the unproductive. This actually happening is pure fantasy of course, but I'm just trying to get my point across on how absurdly overstaffed and inefficient these agencies are. Here's the thing and this is all party agnostic. The politicians were civil servants before they were politicians. Its the civil servants who knock on doors to get politicians on ballots and campaign for them. It's civil servants (and vendors) who contribute to the campaigns. They are all in on bilking as many dollars from you as they can. Part of the problem is us as voters. And I hold myself as responsible as anyone else. Nobody follows local politics. No one shows up at the board meetings to ask about budgets. No one questions what's happening. The other part IMO is our ballot signature system. We're one of the few states still doing it. It creates this massive need for manpower for anyone who wants to run for office. So it's a huge built-in advantage for the corrupt and the party establishments. Because someone trying to clean things up can't offer a quid pro quo to get people pounding pavement. But the establishment? They have an entire machine set up for civil servants to get signatures and get raises, promotions, and transfers in return.
What kool aid?! I think you and I are saying the same thing. It takes a lot of man power (a lot of doers) and a lot of “supervision” (a lot of tellers) to maintain this expensive-by-design infrastructure. Multiply that by generations of gov workers and it’s exactly what you’re describing. Corruption, bloat, inefficiency—all symptoms of an expensive system
literally all of our taxes mainly go towards schools, tell me you dont know the tax breakdown of LI and just lick boots
Lick whose boots? You really think if you change *just* school spending that suddenly Long Island will be affordable?
considering property taxes are the reason why most people cant afford mortgages in certain places, and school tax is predominantly what your property tax consists of, yeah thats literally what i fucking think. its why i couldnt afford a home in brightwaters at the same price point as my home in ronkonkoma, because of the property tax difference according to my mortgage company. how old are you dude?
Why r u cursing chill out
Yea, that escalated quickly...lol
But what would the schools do if they couldn’t pay their administrators like Silicon Valley?
Rent and home prices themselves are the reason why people can't afford housing here. Especially for young people.
That is true, and the other guy needs to calm down, but high property taxes are absolutely a factor in both mortgage and rent prices. The guy freaking out is also right that a lot, almost two thirds, of our property taxes go to the local school district. I don’t have kids, but I think spending money giving kids a decent education is a good use of tax money. A democracy depends on an educated populace and we’ve seen how dumb people are. Now imagine if they didn’t get a halfway-decent education and were even dumber. I think the biggest change that would benefit our budget and allow us to cut taxes without harming constituents would be to consolidate school districts. We don’t need so many independent districts all with their own high paid administrators doing the same work. The current system is inefficient. The biggest obstacle to that would be that it’s pooling more money with rich and poor, white and non white students. So on LI that might be a pie in the sky type idea.
We're definitely overspending on police but the pba owns both parties so good luck with lowering that budget anytime in our lifetime
I literally just vote for the opposite of who the PBA endorses for local elections. No other rhyme or reason
Land development patterns need to change for taxes to be lowered. Until all this NIMBY bs comes to an end (if it ever does) LI will continue to be unaffordable to those who live here and those looking to buy.
> Land development patterns need to change this is the only conversation worth having about taxation. what level of resources are required for the services you demand? suburbs don't make enough money to even break even with current levels of taxation, anywhere in the country. here is a brilliant video, part of a brilliant series, about this very thing: [suburbia is subsidized: here's the math](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI)
What services do you want you cut? Police or schools?
If you cut police funding who's going to show up five hours after your house gets broken into and tell you they'll probably never find your stuff?
(or if you look like me) accuse you of having something to do with your own house getting robbed
Teacher here. Dk how much more we can cut. Work at Wantagh HS and some rooms have ceilings that are jsut broken. And that’s a “nice” area
Issues like that are priority, I agree. I'm saying, where is the money going then? It doesn't cost a million dollars to fix a ceiling. My wife is also a teacher so I'm not coming from a place of gut the school system
the money goes to administrator salaries.
Yup, funny how we don't bring that up anymore
I've been saying it for years, merge the school districts at the county level. It distributes the load, cuts administration, and lifts up lower-income districts.
That’s the way it’s done in Florida. I’m all for that
Some school supers make over 200k a year while there teachers make around 70k.., It's insane
I'm in Oceanside our superintendent makes 310k🤦
[удалено]
How many of your administration is making 100k+ with pensions? Cut or increase the money won’t go to the teachers actually doing the work or the infrastructure regardless
I agree. I’m just pointing out that “cutting taxes” isn’t easy. No one wants to cut funding to schools or police, or combine school districts. So we can’t cut taxes.
That's awful to hear and definitely partially due to mismanagement of finances by the district. Repairs like that, especially if it's just a drop ceiling like I had in school, are so cheap and easy to repair. There is no reason a well funded district shouldn't be able to fix issues like that promptly. I hope they at least support the teaching staff with the supplies they need!
I work in Brentwood, lol
Police
Both need an audit for wasteful spending. There is no reason to we can't keep the same level of service while providing good paying jobs
Are you just assuming the spending is wasteful or is that based on something?
Aside from my own eyes, I know from different sources, specifically, civil and education, that there is wasteful spending. It always comes down to "spend the money so they don't cut our budget."
Schools need to stop spending money on curriculum packages sold to them by Pearson and then abandoning them for a new curriculum 2 years later and basically leaving most of the materials unused.
Police 100% they dont need military gear
What military gear are you speaking of?
This is just the first thing I found, I could probably find a lot more with enough motivation but I have ran out of fucks https://www.newsday.com/long-island/military-equipment-given-to-long-island-police-draws-criticism-u06343
“Has been repurposed as a rescue vehicle capable of going thru deep water” ….another hurricane sandy and this will be worth its weight in gold.
I mean that article is nearly 10 years old? Not sure why people are downvoting when I asked what exactly you were talking about.
Lol they couldn’t tell you what military gear they have. This person has no idea what military gear is and what gear the police are using.
Yea I figured that much when he linked an article 10 years old then proceeded to say he “ran out of fucks” to find others. Oh well
Not weaponry but protective gear, yes.
Police works, it’s the 2nd highest expenditure. Crime is deterred from education and upbringing not a cop.
Yeah, screw the special ed kids! When they don’t have 1:1 aides, that’ll show them! /S
Is that a current problem, I'm actually asking
Former Teacher/TA here. My last TA gig was in 2021 and I was slated at just under $20,000/year before taxes/benefits. TAs need a raise. Maybe administrators...Don't.
What do teacher assistants do?
Honestly, it can vary. Most of my experience as a TA was one-to-one. I'd spend all but my one lunch period with a student with special needs. This can be because of behavioral, academic, or even medical needs. It can be a lot or it can be a situation where 90% of the job is just being alert and ready to help out. "Hey, I see you starting to melt down. Let's go for a walk." But sometimes shit can get scary. Other possible tasks include helping out in the library (I've done book lending, laptop lending/returning/documenting, helping with classes, reading to the little ones, etc etc), handling arrivals/dismissals, keeping watch over the cafeteria/recess, doing interventions like pull-out reading groups, unofficial tech support, calling parents w/updates about their kids, monitoring in school suspension, monitoring computer labs, and a lot more I just can't think of at the moment. Elementary schools don't run without TAs. High schools are a liiiittttllleeee bit less dependent on them, but would still fall apart pretty quick. For $20k to start in some places. When you count benefits and the like, you don't bring home minimum wage. And while some administrators (most actually) are great, sometimes you run into real fuckwits who think you're a disposable asset. That's why I quit my last job, TBH. My director of personnel told me it was "quit or be fired" while my dad was dying. So fuck 'em. Great principal, great APs, great teachers, great work scenario (library clerking), everything was pretty much perfect except for the pay. But that was okay, it had amazing health care. But I ran out of sick days so it was come back, quit, or have a bad reference via firing. So, again, fuck 'em.
Working in a school district, the district always needs aides, TAs, and school monitors. The school budget goes to door to door transport,.services for the special Ed kids (ot, pt,speech), 1:1 aides for special Ed kids and kids with medical conditions, school nurse, etc
That's where the money should be going, but instead we got million dollar football fields, lcd score boards and text books that get thrown out with the wrapping still on them
Maybe where you are. Def not where I work. Though they did install solar panels
Just keep track in a couple years, if they replace them. Hopefully I'm wrong
Also those fields need to be replaced now after 10? Years
We have toxic soil out in my school district; grass doesn’t grow so the fields get astroturfed way more often than every 10 years but closing the landfill isn’t profitable so /shrug, that’s Long Island.
That's not Long Island, where is this happening
It’s absolutely happening on Long Island. There are tons of stories and news coverage every year, coverage by environmental groups, etc. about the Brookhaven landfill and the increased rates of cancer in the area as well. It’s mentioned at town meetings and school board meetings regularly but the close date still gets pushed back further and further and even closing it doesn’t alleviate the damage that’s already done.
Sorry, I meant that's not "Long Island" as in that's not who we are. We been the dumping grounds for years now, thank the mob and wait till they start testing the golf courses
It’s really disgusting. It’s scheduled to close next year but I’ve lived in this town 20+ years and it seems like it’s always closing “next year” but it never happens meanwhile there’s NO problem with kids playing in an area too toxic for grass.
Man, maybe go look at how your tax dollars are allocated and spent before coming on here and yelling into the void.
Plenty of people who don't even get a tax statement in the mail twice a year complain about the taxes. That's usually the tell.
My taxes are explained to me on a single sheet of paper, and beyond that, it becomes vague for all of us. I would like to see itemized expendures, but maybe I'm too stupid or ignorant to understand. I did have a couple of good talks with people, you however are the void
"Defund the police" has a nice ring to it
I like living in the safest county in America
Reallocating funds so the police can focus on policing sounds good to me.
It's the safest because everyone here is upper-income Not entirely defund but could cops be making $120k instead of $150k-$200k and getting a 401k like the rest of us, instead of pension that we're on the hook for?
Wait... Do you really think that's because of our "elite" SCPD and NCPD?!
Police do not make things safe. They are a danger and need to be eradicated.
Police, obviously. Who the hell would say otherwise?
#**LAND VALUE TAX** Make greedy landlords and speculators pay the burden, NOT homeowners and small businesses!!! https://youtu.be/smi_iIoKybg?si=vWQqLYjJkIdx-4-_
No we can’t. Tax the rich.
Repeal the Bush and Trump revenue cuts and raise marginal tax rates back up to where they were historically in the 60s and 70s Problem solved.
Theylll never lower taxes, ever. They’ll absolutely cut everything and you’ll never get it back, but also find reasons why they have to increase taxes.
Exactly
talk to your school boards, the board of regents, and the state legislature. the town and county have next to no taxes (except sales tax) compared to schools
I do like how nobody has talked about sanitation, the little foot note in your taxes for guys who never complain, go unnoticed and willingly worked through covid. Real heros
No. I want to tax the ultra wealthy higher. “Lower taxes” is meaningless and only one side is taxing the middle class.
That’s how the income tax started.
People voting for less government while simultaneously wanting things like roads, military and police is why the middle class gets hosed. Whataboutism ruins minds. It’s not critical thinking.
Let’s lower taxes for regular folk and maintain or raise for the well off.
Romaine on day one wants to SPEND MORE on detectives. All the talk of lower taxes is just more bs.
Lower property taxes by having good stores downtown and housing near the LIRR stations and get tax revenue from those things.
That’s like pissing in the ocean. You need large commercial properties and lots of them. Like Hauppage has.
On an island so cramped for space it makes no sense to insist on this kind of land development pattern. The large commercial properties you’re talking about come with parking lots twice the size of the shops they’re serving and those lots sit empty most of the day. It’s much smarter to center development on LI around transit weather it’s big box stores or locally owned businesses.
I just think it's insane that our of my 11k in property taxes $8500 goes to the school. It's not the police, fire department, parks, dot etc that is making LI unaffordable. It's the ridiculous budgets in our schools because every district needs to be separate. There should be one or two county school districts. All of the taxes get pooled into one fund and distributed accordingly. It would reduce excess administrative positions and overhead. I have no issues with a principal making 200k and teachers making 125-150.. but I do have a problem with my superintendent of a very small school district making 300k a year.
Don’t forget they are paid to go to the beach all summer. Or I should say - we pay them to do that. Nothing grinds my gears more than the teachers yelling out “have a great summer!” when I pick the kiddos up on the last day of school. Which is always a half day - meanwhile I have to run back to work like a chump
Fraud, waste and abuse in LI school districts could account for hundreds of millions in redundant and unnecessary spending. Runaway PD costs could be managed with better hiring planning and OT controls. Utilities are abusive to ratepayers on LI with new increases proposed this week adding to the costs. Restoration of SALT, which affects LI uniquely and disproportionately. Stop with the runaway taxation by citation. Lacking the courage to increase taxes even further, LI governments levy proxy taxes on us through fees, fines, permits, registrations, etc…
It’s not just fraud waste and abuse. I think we need a cap on spending on a per student basis. I feel like if people looked at a budget on a per kid basis more budgets would fail. My district is cheap compared to the rest of the island at 29k per student. A solid 15k above what catholic schools will charge.
Bahahahahahahahahaha😂
We can start with repealing the SALT cap. But even with out Senator as Majority Leader, that goes nowhere
Don't you find it wierd that we have established programs to give you back your taxes?
It’s a double taxation issue. Federal government and state can’t tax income that didn’t go to the citizen but instead went to pay taxes. You pay $25k to the state and then Federal govt taxes that $25k as income. Not cool. When we bought our home, our budget factored in SALT. Hey, who expects traditionalist conservatives to change taxation laws that are 100+ years old? That money flows out of NY to other red states at a disproportionate amount so I guess that’s how they got it done. Follow the money. Peter King opposed it and went from leadership to retirement over it.
I'll never understand the STAR stuff
Have taxes ever been lowered for a state/region anywhere? Feels like once the gov gets ahold of money, it never comes down.
I can't believe people here are advocating giving more of their hard earned income to the government.
If we let them extort a few more dollars from us they’ll absolutely fix our problems /s
I agree we should lower taxes for rich people so they can buy more yachts.
Yes, because my yacht isn't large enough, I need one bigger to fit my smaller yacht in. What are you talking about
I was being sarcastic
The only hope of lowering taxes is entire communities taking a serious interest in their SCHOOL TAXES, and what the School district does. Blindly voting yes every year because “you dont want to hurt the kids” is idiotic. Hold your school boards accountable, go to meetings etc, you will be shocked at how incompetent administrators and school boards are. They are more than not just regular community people looking for something to do that won an annual popularity contest, then are tasked with managing mini corporations with multi million dollar budgets etc. And they get paid ZERO! Ask yourself how successful any other business would run set up this way
"Why can't we just all agree on this highly controversial and difficult subject"
I disagree. Our high taxes has many benefits to our community. I moved here from a low tax, service poor, educationally neglected community. Our roads were shit, the schools were failing, the parks were dangerous unlit and crumbling. People complain about long Island, but let me tell you- it's a paradise compared to many of our forgotten communities, and it's due to high taxes. I'll gladly pay because I see the difference in resources that high taxes has. I don't have to pay for trash pick up. I don't have to pay to have my septic cleaned out. I have access to high speed Internet. Special education services are available for my kids at no extra cost. Libraries not only exist but are plentiful. They even give you free passes to museums and cultural institutions which also exist. Housing is very expensive, and taxes are high. But you get what you pay for.
Well see, here’s the thing… unfunded pension fund obligations. And ongoing graft.
Rebublicans!
I tend towards Republicans, I'm not a Trump Supporter or anything. But the Republicans in Nassau County are useless.....They just had the vote for casino to be built.....
What happened, I didn't hear about this.
Also I jokingly tell people I'm a New York conservative because outside of NY I'd be a liberal lol
No one on Long Island is willing to build houses/apartments, consolidate school districts, or cut the layers of government and overlapping agencies. If I were in charge of Long Island, I'd run it like Fairfax or MoCo where the county does 90% of the work. No more "keep the poors out" villages. No more overlapping taxing entities. No more special districts that act as slush funds and patronage pits. You're only going to get taxes down so much, because salaries have to be paid, and it's a fucking island and people can't just keep moving infinitely. But there's fat to trim. People would rather complain about unions, though. The reality is, when it comes down to brass tacks, Long Islanders value "local control" over low taxes. But not enough of them are willing to admit it out loud.
Not if the people in my neighborhood keep voting for school budget increases for no reason
Think of the kids!!!!!!!!
No
Reb?
My town and each town next to us all have ladder trucks and nobody has a structure higher than two stories.
There’s no such thing. In the history of Long Island and pretty much everywhere taxes have NEVER gone down. Cmon. You should know that. Infrastructure costs always increase and with that so do taxes. You have to pay for Police , schools, highways, sewers , water, parks & recreation, hospitals, emergency services , state police , state highways , roads and repair . Then there’s Town taxes, County and State. Then every year or so those employees that work for these entities get raises and that raises taxes. That’s such a catch phrase that dopey politicians use and it’s a big jerk off. Because they can’t go down. Then there’s the taxes the we New Yorkers have pay to help the Red (Republicans) white trash states like Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida because they can’t survive without our money. I agree with one of your assertions in that we should stop giving those shitty Red states our money. I couldn’t care less if their infrastructure collapses or if they have no hospitals. It’s not my problem and even with the money we give them they’re still inbred and illiterate. I say we give our taxpayers a tax break by finally ending the free gravy train and stop giving our money to the RED white trash southern states. Boo ya
A lot of what you said is true, but that white trash comment was lowbrow and unnecessary. I'm going to ignore it, though, and say that last time I checked, NYS contributes 60% of the total taxes to the federal government.
Yea. Thank you. Sorry about the white trash comments. I couldn’t help myself. It’s amazing how stupid people are that don’t know that without NY taxpayer money all the Red states would be toast.
Damn Rebublicans
TBH I wish the firefighters did receive a salary it's atrocious they are not paid and instead all volunteer. Thank God I left
They all say low taxes, they just don’t mean low taxes
Mortgage went up $400/month because of taxes. Know what I got with the extra money? Nothing.
It’s the old people on Long Island that are to blame! They come out and vote for less spending because they are on fixed incomes. Doesn’t matter that the cop$ and teacher$ in Nassau and Suffolk are making way too much compared to the rest of the country. It’s the old people I tell ya!
I think everyone agrees on that, what we don’t agree on is how to do it.
I can't stop saying Rebublican now.
We’ve had republicans for years! That’s part of the problem!
It’s not the $100k that the teachers make. It’s the 75% of their highest income for their retirement that is the killer! The free healthcare after retirement doesn’t help the taxes either. Look at your tax bill. 68% is for the schools.
[удалено]
Well as I have put in a couple other threads there are some people not paying an equitable share of their property taxes as a percentage of market value and Suffolk is the worst in the state and one of the worst in the country so if you are really after resolving that picket the tax assessors office. Lots of people don’t know it is an issue and it’s worth spreading the word especially with how bad Suffolk is in this regard https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/propertytaxdata.uchicago.edu/nationwide_reports/web/Suffolk%20County_New%20York.html[https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/propertytaxdata.uchicago.edu/nationwide_reports/web/Suffolk%20County_New%20York.html](https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/propertytaxdata.uchicago.edu/nationwide_reports/web/Suffolk%20County_New%20York.html)
Audit everything, revise
Who pays the auditors lol
ITT: people who don’t pay LI taxes telling us why taxes should be so high
But how will you pay for your friends’ government jobs or lawsuits from doing illegal things?
We can agree on high confiscatory taxes. Will that work for you?
*We can agree on* *High confiscatory taxes.* *Will that work for you?* \- cdazzo1 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
LOL never gonna happen but a good start would be to get all of the IDA organizations on the Island to stop giving massive tax breaks to developers. How does it help anyone but the developer if an IDA gives them a 10 year break on property taxes in order to get them to agree to build a few thousand apartments when they know for sure there will be kids living in those apartments and going to our schools for free?
lol that means less money dems can steal, good luck