1971-02-04

              i
• ' )
FARMINGD& LB 0^ M 10c
WHERE THE HISTORY OF YOUR COMMUNITY IS r
An Officiaf Newspaper of The Incorporated Village of FarminRdale — Serving Great*
• Y
' i
* d Melville
VOL. 8 NO. 24 Second Class Postage has been paid at Farmingdale. N. Y. 11'. Thursday, February 4, 1971
School District Stands to
Lose $ 1 Mil. Tax Revenue
In case you don't know what all this is about on South Main Street-they
are ( as shown in the upper picture) busy with installing 1,500 ft.
of 5 ft. diameter storm drains. Busy, too, is the South Farmingdale
Fire Department with its annual fund drive, as shown in the lower
nirtnrp ( Photos by Robert Greco)
How would the residents within the Farmingdale
School District like to pay an additional $ 20.00 in school
taxes for every member of the family - man, woman or
child? This would amount to $ 80.00 for the average
family and would be on top of the tax increases sought
by Governor Rockefeller which at $ 60. 00 per capita
could add another $ 240.00 or so to the average Far­mingdale
family's cost of living.
This question is of course
rather rhetorical since hardly
anybody would cheerfully answer
in the affirmative. But that is not
the only reason that this question
is rhetorical. Another one is that
without being asked Uie tax­payers
of School District 22 will
eventually have to pay this extra
$ 20.00 per year per person
anyway because that's what the
law says. Unless, of course, the
law is changed.
But let's start at the beginning.
And at the beginning is what Dr.
William Kinzler, Superintendent
of Schools in District 22 calls the
" Holy Ronan Empire", other­wise,
but seldom more en-dt
''< ngly, know as Metropolitan
Tr~ > it Authority. This in every
sense of the word irdependent
agency is charged with
develn^ jnfl Reoublic Airfield into
a big trai.. t^ rtation hub. The
land needed was acquired by the
state - and therein lies the nub of
the problem.
Being now state property, and
being developed for the purpose it
is being developed for, it goes off
the tax rolls of the Farmingdale
School District - as well as off the
tax rolls of other governmental
units like Youth Council, Water
District, Fire District, Town of
Oyster Bay and even County of
Nassau.
This toss of tax revenue will be
gradually but inexorably.
It started already last year and
is going to stretch over the next
six years - until it is completely
off the tax rolls and the School
District will have lost annual
revenue of approx. $ 1,000,000.00
AD these zeros add up to one
million dollars - roughly 10 per
cent of the present school budget.
Making up this loss will mean
taxing the residents of the school
district another $ 20.00 per head -
without considering the usual tax
increase from year to year which
also comes inexorably. And not
counting all other tax and price
increases which, too, are always
inexorably.
Now if the land taken by the
state would be used to build a
college and therefore come under
sections 532,534 or 536 of the Real
Property Tax Law -- then the
state would keep on paying the
community the tax it received in
the past. But since this property
was taken for commercial
development Section 545 prevails
and the state will only give
partial relief -- paying taxes only
over seven years and reducing its
payments by approx. 15 percent
each year until there is nothing
left to pay.
The reasoning behind this is
basically just, the assumption
being that development of
something like a big tran­sportation
hub by the state will
draw a number of businesses who
will become local taxpayers and
therefore make up the loss from
the gradual exemption of the land
taken over by the state.
The rub, however, is that this
assumption is predicated upon
the availability of land for
commercial development. And
this is not the case in the Far­mingdale
school district. Anyone
familiar with our area will be
hard put to show on the map of
the school district pictured below
where businesses drawn by the
( Continued on Page 12)
Union
Free School
District 22
in on the east by tax- exempt cemeteries, on the south by
( he railroad where the little tax producing property remaining is also
considered for condemnation by the state, completely built up on the
west and having no north beyond Republic Airfield the Farmingdale
I District will never be the beneficiary of whatever economic
lae development of the Republic site may unleash.