Sen. Jack Martins: Two Percent Tax Cap Better Than Status Quo

Sen. Jack Martins unintentionally stood up the North Lakeville-Lakeville Estates Civic Association meeting back in September, but redeemed himself by attending as a guest speaker Wednesday night and discussed Albany’s budget and the importance of the two percent tax cap.

“Sen. Martins has been in office since the beginning of this year and has already helped effect the two percent budget decrease and eliminated the $10 billion deficit without raising taxes,” said Lakeville Estates President

Albany and New York State’s Budget

“We were able to pass effectively for the first time realistically in the history of the State,” Martins said. “It was $178 million worth of Mandate Relief and it certainly wasn’t as extensive as we had originally hoped, but it was the first time that both Houses of the State Legislature actually worked to untangle some of the often times all to present red tape when it comes to imposing costs on local governments and school districts.”

That $178 million is a lot of money, Martins said, but when compared to New York State’s $132 billion budget, it isn’t really that much.

“I am well aware of how sometimes Albany — from their view — takes a one size fits all approach to government where they make decisions that affect everybody the same way,” Martins said. “The pressures that we have here are significantly different than the pressures that they have in other parts of the state…Often times we’re better off making decisions at a local level…than allowing for decisions to be made that essentially paint the entire state with the same brush.”  

Martins further discussed the Mandate Relief program and pension system and and said, “As the bearer of such news, please do not assume that I am being an apologist for the status quo. I am merely telling you what the status quo is and giving you some of the pressures that we have in dealing with these issues.”

A couple of audience members were voiceful in their concerns over unfair high taxes.

“They system has gotten to a point where there has to be change,” Martins said. “By its very nature it cannot continue any further than where it is today. It can’t. So there are other people out there — yourselves included — who are putting pressure on their elected officials to take action and I would suggest we continue to do that.”  

Two Percent Tax Cap

The is often misunderstood and the some audience members didn’t see how it could be a good idea, so Martins explained the difference between the status quo and the two percent cap using school districts as an example, which is often the most affected.

“Because school district budgets are popularly voted, it requires a 60 percent override,” Martins said.  

With the status quo, if the budget gets voted down, it goes out again, and if voted down once more, it goes on to an austerity budget, which Martins said, “often times is almost as high as the budget that had been proposed and voted down.”

The vote is essentially thrown out the window and the voters who can’t afford to spend any more money on education wind up paying anyway.

Under the two percent tax cap, “there is one vote in May and you can decide to either go beyond the cap or stay within the cap,” Martins said. “If you stay within the cap it’s 50 percent, if you go beyond the cap it requires a 60 percent override.”

The second time, if voted down, the people get to make the same decision again (stay within or go beyond) and if both votes don’t pass, under the tax cap “there is no increase at all,” Martins said. “There is no austerity. There’s nothing. It is zero percent year to year.”  

Martins shared an “incredible” statistic that resonated with the public. He said, “Between 2000 and 2010, more people left New York State and moved elsewhere than any other state in the county. People voted with their feet.”

Martins said New York State has become too expensive to the point where many seniors had to sell their homes and young adults that were educated in the school district had to move. It’s because of reasons like this that Martins said you cannot rely on raising taxes alone and should show the fiscal restraint to let people know of these changes.

“[Sen. Martins] is working hard along with his fellow senate colleagues to “fix” some of our budget problems on a state level which is a true challenge and we commend him for his efforts,” Wohlgemuth said.