A local taxpayer advocacy group will hold a community forum with elected officials tomorrow night to discuss the need for relief from “unfunded mandates,” or specific requirements and provisions that local communities must comply with in their budgets but for which they are not reimbursed by the state or federal governments.
BEST4NY, which stands for Better Education and Smarter Taxation 4 New York, and municipalities say such mandates are a key driver behind greater spending and high property taxes. BEST4NY’s executive committee member Howland Robinson said:
NYS’s county, school, and town elected leaders desperately need mandate relief from the NYS Legislature that for years has ignored their pleas for help. Albany’s fiscal responsibility talk about a tax cap and spending restraint in the NYS budget camouflages its fiscal irresponsibility walk of stashing its excessive spending in county, school and town budgets, and charging the cost to taxpayers property tax credit card.
The group will hold its meeting tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at Fox Lane Middle School on Route 172 in Bedford. The meeting is free and open to the public.
Speakers will include Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, the state Assembly Minority Leader, George Oros, chief of staff for Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, Mary Foster, Peekskill’s mayor and Lisa Davis, executive director of the Westchester-Putnam School Boards Association.
For more information, email best4ny@gmail.com If you go, please come back and share your thoughts in the comments.
Photos: (from l) George Oros, Lisa Davis, Mary Foster (Journal News file photos)
