Passing an austere, fiscally responsible and on-time budget was good, but capping runaway property taxes around the state would be great.
That’s the message Gov. Cuomo is getting from some of his closest advisers, who say he must do much more to change New York’s notoriously profligate ways if he wants to become a truly outstanding governor.
“The big question now being asked is, ‘With the budget out of the way, does the governor have the guts to fight for the tax cap in the face of a recalcitrant Legislature?’ ” said a Cuomo administration insider.
Cuomo and his aides agree that runaway suburban and upstate residential and commercial property taxes are the single greatest cause of economic disruptions and massive population losses in those areas.
They also recognize that unless Cuomo’s proposed 2 percent property-tax cap is adopted, the governor will wind up being blamed for a new round of property-tax hikes caused by $1.5 billion in state education-aid cuts contained in his budget.
“They’ll be called ‘Cuomo hikes’ unless the governor does something to stop them,” the insider said.
A property-tax cap would permanently restrain local governments — counties, cities, towns and school districts — outside New York City from continuing to raise revenues at three and four times the rate of inflation, as they’ve done for over a decade.
Massachusetts, once known as “Taxachusetts,” transformed itself from one of the highest-taxing states into a moderately taxing one in 1980 with the adoption of a 2 percent property-tax cap.
Directly tied to Cuomo’s tax cap is “mandate relief,” state action to lift costly burdens like pension obligations and elective Medicaid services from the backs of local governments.
Both the cap and mandate relief are aggressively opposed by public-employee unions, which benefit from bloated government payrolls.
Caps and mandate relief are also opposed by powerful Democratic and Republican leaders, who control local political organizations that feed off the high taxes.
Some close to Cuomo fear that Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau), whose house has already passed the governor’s property-tax cap, will actually be its biggest opponent because of the infamously high-spending ways of Long Island’s local governments and school districts.
And Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) has said that he won’t pass Cuomo’s cap unless the Senate agrees to strengthen New York City’s rent regulations, which expire in June.
But Skelos has flatly ruled out strengthening the rent laws, suggesting to Cuomo’s aides that he’s actually determined to block passage of a property tax cap.