Foil: Your right to Know.
“East Ramapo’s school board on Wednesday evening passed a dramatic directive by the state Education Commissioner to increase the 2024-25 property tax levy to a total of 5.38%, more than four times higher than the 1% hike voters approved in June.
The majority of board members voted for the increase, they said, under protest.
“I vote yes as directed by the commissioner,” said Trustee Moshe Samuel Feder. “It is an unfair and unlawful decision.”
Trustee Moses Koth said he believed Rosa’s ruling was illegal. But he voted for the tax-levy change, as well.
Koth and others noted that violating an order of the commissioner could lead to a board member’s removal.
Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, in a surprising July 31 order, said the board’s decision to propose a 2024-25 budget plan that raised the tax levy by 1% was “arbitrary, capricious and violative of education policy due to the ways in which it inequitably favors nonpublic school students at the expense of public school students.”
The board’s vote to comply with Rosa’s order will increase the tax levy by an additional 4.38%, bringing the total hike for the school year that began July 1 to 5.38%.
Trustee Eric Young-Mercer, who joined the board in June and is a alumnus of East Ramapo, said “absolutely yes” when asked his vote. Trustees Sherry McGill and Sabrina Charles-Pierre also voted a clear yes.
East Ramapo has limited resources and divided needs
Rosa’s order came in response to a public-school parent’s formal appeal to her, which sought increased spending on public schools in the district.
In East Ramapo, the overwhelming majority of the more than 10,000 public-school students are Black and brown and the majority or English language learners; the district’s test scores are among the lowest in the state and the percentage of kids considered homeless is among the highest.
Even with $90 million in federal COVID aid set aside for building fixes, the schools would still need hundreds of millions of dollars of repairs; after eight years of all school water fountains being inaccessible for kids due to high levels of lead, only a fraction are expected to be fixed when school opens this fall.
State orders East Ramapo:Hike tax levy by 4.38% and use money on public school kids
Meanwhile, another 30,000-plus children who live within the district’s boundaries attend private schools, mostly yeshivas that serve the Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish community.
For over a decade, the public school community has seen the school board as favoring the private-school community’s needs. Oft cited is an expensive universal busing system that is the most complex of any school system in the state outside of New York City.
Last-minute attempt to derail board vote
Earlier Wednesday, a parent group attempted to get a court injunction to stop the board’s vote.
The school board’s lawyer, Douglas Gerhardt, agreed with the plaintiffs, Parents Against Stealth Taxes. But state Supreme Court Judge Sherri Eisenpress didn’t. She allowed the vote to go forward.
East Ramapo:Judge says vote on state-ordered tax hike for public schools must go through
“Either the kids wait for (English as a Second Language instruction) for a year and half or the taxes are issued and (later) have to be refunded,” Eisenpress said during a virtual hearing, just hours ahead of the school board’s vote. “I just really don’t see what the irreparable harm is to allow this to go forward.”
Many expect that court challenges to the state-imposed tax increase will continue.”
To read the complete Journal News coverage, click here.
