New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District School officials expressed delight this week that the district will no longer have to budget $65,000 for the Metropolitan Transit Authority payroll tax as a result of revisions in the state tax code.
“This is a big win for us,” New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Trustee Patricia Rudd said at a school board meeting Monday. “We want to thank the lobbying efforts of the New York State School Boards Association for this change. It was a law that never should be been in place to begin with, and hopefully this will be a continuation of getting rid of these dumb mandates.”
Last week, the state Legislature passed a bill repealing the MTA Payroll Tax for 78.2 percent of all employers, including school districts, BOCES, and special act districts. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
The New York State School Boards Association serves as the statewide voice of more than 700 boards of education.
The MTA payroll tax required business owners, municipalities and school districts to pay 34 cents for every $100 of payroll. The tax affected all businesses and municipalities including school districts, nonprofit organizations that had a payroll and hospitals within the areas serviced by the MTA including Nassau County.
State Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola) and state Sen. Lee Zeldin (R, C, I- Shirley) co-sponsored the bill earlier in June, which passed in state Senate with a bipartisan vote, 40-22
The bill was then introduced in the Assembly by state Assemblyman George Latimer (D- Rye). Twenty-one other Assembly members had signed on as co-sponsors, including Dean Murray (R, C- East Patchogue), Al Graf (R, C- Holbrook), Dan Losquadro (R, C- Shoreham), and Fred Thiele (I- Sage Harbor).
“Alleviating both private and public schools from having the burden of paying the MTA Payroll Tax will free up precious dollars for education and will allow school districts some flexibility when putting their budgets together,” Martins said in a statement issued following the decision. “This was a tax that should never have been implemented. It forced schools to pay a tax they had nothing to do with, taking resources away from our students. I was proud to be a major force behind repealing it and I applaud Gov. Cuomo for joining us in our commitment to rid schools and small businesses of this onerous tax.”
Barbara Bradley, deputy director of communications and research for the New York State School Board Association said the repeal was of great importance to the association.
“This has been one of our legislative priorities to make school districts exempt from these payroll taxes,” Bradley said. “We felt it was a cost that was being passed on to them from the state. It was another way to raise revenue, but it was taking money away from kids.”
Even though schools were reimbursed for the money, Bradley said there were problems with schools getting their money in a timely manner, forcing them to take out loans.
“There was a lag time, and districts would have to pay the cost while they waited,” Bradley said. “They would have to wait to get reimbursed. In meantime they had other bills, and might have to take out loans, and then have to would have to pay the interest on those loans. By repealing this, districts wouldn’t be paying this tax at all with additional costs to budgets. It would free up funds and that is more money that can go towards programs.”
The push to make school districts, BOCES and special act districts exempt began with a resolution brought to the New York State School Board Association in 2009 by BOCES Rockland, Bradley said.
“Our delegates viewed it to be a statewide importance,” Bradley said. “We considered it, debated it, and voted to make it part of our legislative priorities. After we approved the resolution we lobbied the state to make the change and urged our members to call their representatives in favor of it.”
Reach reporter Timothy Meyer by e-mail at meyerj.tim@gmail.com.
