Hamilton Square, New Jersey

Hamilton Square School

There is a big difference between city life and country life.  I’ve lived in the country and I’ve lived in a crowded suburb and I’ve hardly moved more than a mile.  You can keep the traffic and the traffic lights.  Give me an open field or some woods any day.

I grew up on Fleetwood Drive in Hamilton Square, New Jersey, when it was still a rural area with lots of working farms.  There was a small farm behind my family’s house where my brother and sisters and I played all summer.  The farmer would plow his field several times a year.  In the early summer he went through his field on his combine and left behind straw cuttings that we would use to build little clubhouses.  We walked through the field pushing the straw with our legs.  When we had a bundle, we would pick it up in our arms and take it to the building site.  We organized secret clubs, played army and generally had a great time in our little forts.  I can still smell the fresh straw.

Somewhere in Guy Foy’s house there is an old movie that his father took of us playing army in the forts.  I saw it once, many years ago.  In part of the field there were five apple trees standing in a row.  We used to climb the trees for hours, picking the apples and having apple fights.  They weren’t any good to eat because they were sour, although we tried a bite every now and then.

When we grew older and were too big to play baseball in Billy McManimon’s backyard, we made a baseball diamond in the farmer’s field.  If you hit a ground ball you were out because nobody could field a grounder with all the tire ruts, straw stems and rocks on the uneven ground.  Billy, who was a few years older than the rest of us, liked to bat left-handed here.  He was a natural right-hand batter but because the right field “fence” was close, he liked to try and hit the ball onto Mercer Street.  The “fence” was a row of pine trees about twenty feet tall.  There was no center field or left field fence.

My mother used to send me on my bicycle to Hooper-McCabe, a small grocery store in the heart of Hamilton Square. Once, when my mother sent me to get a head of lettuce, I came back with a stalk of celery. (Hooper-McCabe became Heinz’s Market in the mid 1960s and then it became the Cookie Cottage). It was located about one mile from my house on Fleetwood Drive, where Mercer Street meets Nottingham Way.  I went past the Nottingham firehouse and Mercer Rubber Company mill to get there. (The red brick building that was the rubber mill is no longer there.)

Rose Ann, my first love, at age six, lived on Mercer Street. To get to her house, I walked through the field about 100 yards and crossed the street.  She had sheep, rams and probably other animals in her backyard and I was fascinated by them.  We often went out to watch them.  Rose Ann was in my first grade class at Hamilton Square School and it broke my heart when she moved away.

Just near the end of Mercer Street on Line Road was the Schilling Farm.  When we went there for fresh eggs, Mrs. Schilling  sometimes went right to the chicken coop to get them.  There is no comparison between a Schilling egg and one that is store bought.  Line Road is a dead end now, just past Mercer Street. You can still fish from the old bridge though and people do.

I used to ride my bike to Nottingham Little League games all the time.  There wasn’t much traffic then and my mother didn’t have a car.  When I got to the field, I just propped my bike against the fence and nobody ever bothered it. They used to play the 1959 Johnny Horton song “Battle of New Orleans” all the time before the games.

Sometimes, my next door neighbor, Bob Holcombe, would let my brother and me go along when he took Lady, his black Labrador retriever for a walk.  We would usually go to the woods at the end of Mercer Street and Miry Brook Road.  Bob used to tell us stories while we walked.  There was a small concrete boundary marker in the woods.  Bob told us that Chief Rain-in-the-Face was buried there.  We believed him.  Bob grew the best tomatoes that I have ever tasted. When I was a little older, I went camping in those same woods with kids from the neighborhood.  We didn’t have tents.  We just threw our sleeping bags on the ground. All of the woods are gone and houses are there now.

When my family had just moved to Hamilton Square, farmer Tindall put up a sign for free potato picking.  The field was too wet for a heavy tractor so Mr. Tindall let us dig up the potatoes by hand.  I can still remember being in that field on a rainy day and walking in all the mud.  The potatoes were a little mushy.

I live in Mercerville now, the next town over from Hamilton Square.  You really can’t tell where one town starts now and the other ends because the land has been filled in with houses.  But every day I drive past the old Flock Farm where my mother used to buy corn and peaches.  The farm was sold years ago to the developer who built University Heights.

The intersection nearest my home, Sloan and Quakerbridge, used to be a quiet corner with a stop sign.  Now it’s a major four lane intersection that’s always busy.  There’s a Burger King on one corner and on the opposite side, where there was once a small shack that sold pork roll sandwiches, there is a large modern Exxon gas station.  Hughes Drive, where I once delivered newspapers on my bicycle, is now so busy that I hope an adult does the route.  I remember when the Five Points had only stop signs.  If they didn’t have traffic lights at the intersection today, they would have to build a hospital right on the corner.

Even Hamilton Square has a traffic jam every day now.  They had to move the old War Memorial a few years ago to make room for a traffic light.  For years it had stood in the middle of the road.  They put the monument in Foley Park near the intersection.  The park was made when they knocked down the old luncheonette where Tommy Baumeister’s father once bought me a chocolate milkshake after a ball game. There used to be a barber shop near where the monument is today. My brother and I used to ride our bikes to the shop and pay a quarter for a hair cut.

About thirty yards from the park, my father used to operate the Nottingham Bookstore.   He was there about twenty years in the basement of the old Grange building.  The Grange building was sold about 20 years ago. The old farmers were dying off and those that were left were having trouble getting up the stairs.  I used to see old farmer Tindall go in there. My father’s store used to be the Post Office many years ago.  I remember going there as a little kid.  Across the street and a little to the left is where the library used to be.  I used to like a book called “Fierce John” when I was little. I read it a lot. Both the library and the Post office are now large modern buildings that serve thousands of people.

I guess what I dislike the most about Hamilton Square today is the traffic.  I liked it when there wasn’t a traffic light at every intersection.  I used to tell my wife that if they put up one more light we were leaving.  I stopped saying that years ago.  I liked it when you could ride your bike safely anywhere.  I liked the apple trees and corn fields.  I’ve been tempted to pack up and move.  I’m not sure exactly what stops me.  I guess it’s fear of the unknown.  Hamilton Square may not be the same, but it’s familiar.  It bothers me that my son will never have a field like I did to play in.  My field is now a housing development and my apple trees are long gone.  I hardly ever see kids playing baseball today except in an organized game with adults.  And forty years ago nobody ever gave you the finger from a passing car.

In my first grade reading book, the book after “Dick and Jane”, were two boys who lived in a rural community.  They played in fields and apple trees just like I did.  At the end of the book they are grown up and have children of their own.  The book ends when they take their kids to see the apple trees and a highway has been built around the trees.  I was crushed and felt so sad for them.  I had no idea at the time that my apple trees were also doomed.

Note: In 2005 I finally did move away. I now live in Washington County, New York, just outside the village of Schuylerville. There is a fifteen acre field behind my house that is planted every other year with feed corn or soybeans. There are woods across the street and beyond the trees, I can see the Hudson River.

I wrote this article for an English class at Mercer County Community College. My college professor thought one of the local weekly papers might be interested in it. It was eventually published in the Hamilton Observer. I think it was in the late 80’s or early 90’s. I could probably figure it out if I wanted to, but let’s just say it is over twenty years old. I have made some changes to clarify some things, but the basic story is the same.

Comments are always welcome and appreciated.

Repaving Schuylerville

A section of Broad Street in Schuylerville.

It’s about time. Broad Street in the village of Schuylerville, New York was finally given a new coat of blacktop this past week. Thousands of drivers who pass through here each day can now roll across a smooth, pothole free surface. Thank you New York State Department of Transportation. The road was resurfaced from the area of Champlain Canal Lock 5, about one mile north of the light where Route 29 turns south, all the way past Byron’s Market to where the Fish Creek goes under Route 4 just before the Schuyler House.

The picture on the left shows the intersection of Routes 29, 4 and 32 in Schuylerville. That is the Cumberland farms store in the picture. It is more commonly called “Cumbys” in upstate New York. I buy all of my gasoline at this station. Double-click on the picture to enlarge it.

Route 29 is a major east west route in this area of New York. Thousands of drivers everyday use it to commute or travel from the Greenwich and Cambridge areas and parts of Vermont to the Adirondack Northway (Route 87), Saratoga Springs and the Wilton Mall area. Except for the Route 4 bridge just north of Schuylerville, which is an older, narrow, steel deck bridge that large trucks can’t use,  you would have to travel 10 miles or so north to Fort Edward or 10 miles or so south to Stillwater to cross the Hudson River.

Route 29 goes east for 12 miles after passing through Saratoga Springs and turns right when it hits Broad Street in Schuylerville.   For a short stretch between the two traffic lights, Broad Street is Route 29, Route 4 and Route 32 at the same time. After a few hundred yards, Route 29 turns left and continues east across the Hudson River. Route 4 and 32 continue south for another two hundred yards or so.

Looking north towards Byron's Market.

After passing Byron’s Market and Burgoyne Road, Route 32 branches off to the right while Route 4 continues south. (If you stand on the sidewalk in front of Byron’s you can look up Burgoyne Road and see the Saratoga Battle Monument).

This mile or so of road through Schuylerville was a total disaster and one of the worst roads in the area until the recent paving. It had been dug up and patched for years. Heavy trucks of all kinds turning, starting, and stopping at the two traffic lights while they traveled through the village, took its toll on the road. It was especially dangerous for motorcycles and bicycles. They had to watch out for old trolley tracks, loose bricks, and potholes.

The new blacktop makes the entire village look better. I can’t wait for the Turning Point Parade to march down it on Sunday, August 1, 2010.

Route 29 at the Hudson River in Washington County.

Route 29 is being repaved just across the river in the town of Easton, in Washington County, too. From the Hudson River bridge to the top of the hill just past where the old Some Place Else restaurant used to be, it is now all new blacktop. The slow vehicle lane is being extended also. The old lane was very short and narrow. Even if a truck or a farm tractor pulled over to let somebody pass, there wasn’t much time. The new lane will be wide enough for a truck or farm tractor to safely use it and long enough for cars to pass the slow moving vehicles.

Here is a link to an article on Wired.com called, “McAdam Paves the Way.” He was born on September 21, (the day this post was written) in 1756 and did a lot to improve the roads of his day.

The main intersection in the village of Schuylerville. One of the two traffic lights in the village.

Looking north at the Hudson River from the Route 29 bridge linking Saratoga and Washington Counties.

I would like to hear what you think.

The Hudson River Dredging Project

Lock 5 on the Hudson River just north of Schuylerville

General Electric is about to begin one of the largest environmental cleanups in the history of the United States. Beginning in May, GE is going to dredge the Hudson River in Fort Edward, New York to cleanup PCBs in the river bottom. Eventually, 40 miles of the river will be dredged from Hudson Falls south to Troy, NY.  I live in Washington County, New York, just across the river from Schuylerville. I am 13 miles south of where the dredging will begin.

There are half a dozen “hot spots” where dredging will occur within a short distance of my house. They won’t be touched until Phase 2. The area around Fort Edward will be dredged this year in Phase 1. There will then be a review process of what was completed. Phase 2 dredging should continue in the spring of 2010. It could take 5 years before all of the dredging is completed.

It still amazes me that GE dumped the PCBs into the river in the first place. A lot of smart people work for GE. I read somewhere that the GE research center in Niskayuna, New York (near Schenectady), has more Phds. than anywhere else in the world. Someone at GE should have known that discharging this stuff into the Hudson River was a very bad idea, even in the 1940s. If not the 40s, than at least the 1960s.  I don’t care if it was legal or illegal. I don’t care if they had a permit or they didn’t have a permit. It was stupid and irresponsible and they should have known better.

Common sense should tell you that you shouldn’t dump this stuff into the river. Now they have to spend millions of dollars to clean it up. It would have been much smarter to either say that we shouldn’t manufacture this stuff in the first place because it is too dangerous or we have to figure out a safe way to dispose of it before we start making it.

GE started dumping polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River in the 1940s and continued to do so until 1977. I  was trying to find out why GE eventually stopped dumping PCB’s in 1977 when I ran across this 2001 article by Charlie Cray called, Toxics on the Hudson: The Saga of GE, PCBs and the Hudson River. GE stopped discharging PCBs into the river  because they were banned by federal law. The United States Congress banned the manufacture of PCB’s in 1976 when they passed the The Toxic Substances Control Act.

PCBs  are bad for you. They are the reason that you can’t eat fish from the Hudson. You can catch fish in the Hudson, but you must release them right away.

The Environmental Protection Agency has an entire section of its website devoted to Hudson River PCBs.

GE has a website with all kinds of detailed information about the project, Hudsondredging.com

The Hudson River is beautiful in this area. It should be as clean as it looks. What do you think?

Schuylerville School Superintendent

Schuylerville School Sign

It’s ridiculous that the Schuylerville School system pays its superintendent $169,487 per year plus $71,537 in benefits. It’s a small district with 1,862 students. It has one elementary school and one junior-senior high school. I hope that whoever negotiates the salary and benefits for the new superintendent thinks long and hard about the taxpayers in the Village of Schuylerville, Village of Victory, Town of Saratoga, Town of Easton, Town of Greenwich and the Town of Northumberland who have to pay the bills. I wonder how many taxpayers in the area actually know how much the superintendent is paid?

A Daily Gazette newspaper article on March 26, 2009, said that the outgoing superintendent, Leon Reed, “was listed as having  the largest compensation package of any public school superintendent in a survey of 91 school districts in an 11-county area, according to a Business Review report in September.” You can read the entire Daily Gazette article here.

You can go to the University of the State of New York’s State Education Department website (NYSED) and compare salaries of school superintendents across the state. It’s too bad the report doesn’t tell you the size of the school district.

Read an article by the chairman of the NYS Commission on Property Tax Relief, Thomas Suozzi. This article originally appeared in the Saratogian in January. It’s called, “Streamline Education Through Consolidation.”  It recommends consolidating the administration of small districts with less than 1000 students.  It’s well worth reading and it will take you less than ten minutes.

The actual report that the article references says: “Require consolidation of school districts with fewer than 1,000 students and grant the Commissioner of Education discretionary authority to order consolidation of school districts with fewer than 2,000 pupils to achieve economies of scale and to increase educational opportunities through expanded course offerings.”

It’s your money. Take some time and read the report by the New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief. It explains in detail the 32 recommendations mentioned in Thomas Suozzi’s article above.

You can also read an earlier post that I wrote called, “Why Are Property Taxes in New York So High?”

The times, they are a changin’. There must be a more cost efficient way to give our children an excellent education.

I would like to know what you think. Leave a comment or send me an email.

I’m Starting a Flea Market

I am turning my four acres of backyard into a flea market this spring. You can see an aerial view of the property by clicking here. You can see a map to the property by clicking here. The address is 42 Old Schuylerville Road, Greenwich New York. I am just across the Hudson River from Schuylerville.

My wife Mary Lynn and I  have a pole barn in the yard that we will build the market around. We can easily accommodate 50 vendors and still have plenty of parking for customers. The property is surrounded by other open fields and the Hudson River is across the street. The front part of the building on the first floor was a tavern for many years. We ran it as a tavern for less than a year after we bought the property. We are going to open the downstairs when the flea market is open to sell breakfast sandwiches, hamburgers, hot dogs, coffee, soda and water etc.

I am running an ad on Craigslist that says the following:

Vendors wanted for a New Flea / Antique Market across the Hudson River from Schuylerville. The outdoor market will be located at 42 Old Schuylerville Road, down the hill from the Washington County Fairgrounds. The days of operation are Saturday and Sunday, early May through the end of October. A 10 foot space is $20 either day, $35 for both days / 20 foot space is $30 either day, $50 for both days The first vendors to reserve space can setup under a pole barn. You don’t have to commit to a full season. You can sell on a week to week basis. Food & beverages will be available. Restroom facilities. Four acres with ample parking. Let me know if you need a table provided. Let me know what you plan to sell. I would like to hear from local farmers who would like to sell their produce here.

Feel free to drive by and see the field where the flea market will be located. Call me in advance and I will be happy to speak with you in person and show you around. Questions? For more information or to reserve space, call John Tedder at 695-4369 or send an email to jtedder@teddersrandomnotes.com Thank you. (end of Craigslist ad)

I’ve decided to open on Saturday May 2nd. There is a big antiques show at the Washington County Fairgrounds that weekend and it generates a lot of extra traffic on Route 29. My property can be seen from Route 29 and I’m just down the hill from the fairgrounds. If I have 20 or so vendors in the field, people driving by will notice it and stop and see what is going on. The antiques show is held twice a year at the fairgrounds and draws dealers and shoppers from all over New York and Vermont and probably parts of Massachusetts.

I’m going to put a sign at the intersection of Old Schuylerville Road and Route 29 where the bridge crosses the Hudson River. I’m also going to put one at the blinking light at the bottom of the hill and near the Route 4 bridge, for people who are coming south from the Fort Edward – Glens Falls area.

My property and the Schuylerville area have always reminded me of Lambertville, New Jersey. There is a flea market along the Delaware River just south of Lambertville that I have visited for years. It is called the  Golden Nugget. The towns seem similar to me because they are both next to a river and a canal. Lambertville is a much bigger town than Schuylerville, but Schuylerville has a lot of traffic going through it because Route 29, Route 4, and Route 32 all run through it for a small stretch.

Schuylerville is an historic area, just like Lambertville. George Washington crossed the Delaware River a few miles south of Lambertville to fight the Battle of Trenton. The Battle of Saratoga, which many historians call the turning point of the American Revolution, was fought in and around Schuylerville. Saratoga National Historical Park is located a few miles south of Schuylerville in Stillwater. I can see the top of the Saratoga Battle monument from my yard when the leaves are not on the trees. The battle monument and the Schuyler House just down the street are a part of Saratoga National Historical Park.

The flea market is 12 miles from Broadway in Saratoga Springs and 5 miles from Greenwich.

If you are a vendor and would like to reserve space, call me or send me an email. I will be happy to answer any questions you have.

Please note: I have closed the flea market.

It only lasted a few weeks in May. I was never able to get enough vendors to make it work and the price of insurance was prohibitive. I had to decide if I wanted to switch insurance companies. My existing insurance company wouldn’t insure me if I had a business on the property. Period. I checked with a couple of other insurance companies and it was just too expensive for me. If I required all of the vendors to have their own insurance it would have been cheaper, but that would have shut out all of the people who just wanted to sell some household stuff once in a while and weren’t really in the flea market business. There are also a lot of vendors out there that just don’t carry insurance. The insurance rates I was quoted were only for six months. The weather in this part of New York is too cold and snowy in the winter to continue much past October and I only would have been open May to October.

If you are reading this blog post, and need additional information, I will be happy to share any other knowledge I have about the flea market business with you. Just leave a comment and I will get back to you.

Why Are Property Taxes In New York So High?

“Consolidating school districts could save New York homeowners — who pay the highest property taxes in the nation — millions of dollars, but surprisingly, some don’t want to hear anything about it, especially if it involves their own school district.” So said Thomas R. Suozzi,  in an article called “Streamline Education Through Consolidation” published in the Saratogian newspaper on Sunday, January 4, 2009. Suozzi is Nassau County Executive and chairman of the New York State Commission on Property Tax Relief.

New Yorkers pay the highest property taxes in the nation. I just wanted to repeat that so that it sinks in. New York property taxes are 78% higher than the national average. What is wrong with New York?

One of the recommendations that the commission made is to consolidate school districts that have fewer than 1,000 students. I don’t know why they picked that number. It seems to me that it could be done with larger school districts. It should be looked at on a district by district basis. What makes sense?

According to Suozzi, we spend more per student in New York than any other state in America. Suozzi also said that people in the education community and taxpayers like the idea of consolidation, except for communities that would actually be effected. He thinks people worry that schools will be closed and their school identity taken away. Consolidation has nothing to do with that.

Consolidation is about combining the administrative functions of a school district. It means having one school administration instead of two or three. For example, the school district in which I live, Schuylerville has 1,862 students. It could be consolidated with another nearby school district such as Stillwater (1312 students) or Saratoga Springs (6,857students) or possibly all three could be combined. Again, what makes sense?

Each school would retain its individual identity. Property taxes would be lowered due to greater efficiency of the district’s administration. If we can get the job done with one administration instead of three, let’s put that money back in the taxpayer’s pocket where it belongs. We can’t continue to keep doing things the same way just because that’s the way it has always been done. Especially when the citizens of a community can’t afford it.

I moved to New York a few years ago from Hamilton, New Jersey. The school district there has 13,000 students and one superintendent. He does have several assistants. They have 3 high schools, 3 middle schools, 17 elementary schools and one school for special education. The school budget is $182 Million. If you divide that by 13,000 students it comes out to $14,000 per student.

Saratoga Springs has a school budget of $107 Million.  If you divide that by 6,857 students it equals $15,600 per student.

Schuylerville has a school budget of $30.5 Million. If you divide that by 1,862 students it equals $16,380 per student.

I couldn’t find any information about the Stillwater school system budget.

The Town of Saratoga (Schuylerville School system) has a median family income of $48,000. Hamilton, NJ has a median family income of $67,000. The people who can least afford it, pay the most per student. Why is that? I can’t find median family income statistics for Saratoga Springs or Stillwater. If I do, I will update this information.

According to a story on Rnews.com in Rochester, Sharon Sweeney is director of the Four County School Boards Association. She says, “Let’s not punish our schools. They are the one thing New York State still has that attracts businesses to the state.” Oh really? Somehow I find that hard to believe. Name one business that is moving into New York state because of the quality of the schools. More than likely, they are getting a tax break from the state of New York to move here, like AMD and their $1.2 Billion incentive package. They also just got a break on $26 million or so in sales tax while they are building the new plant. That is another story.

Consolidating school districts using commonsense is not punishing our schools. It is using our available tax dollars wisely and giving the overburdened New York taxpayer a well deserved break.

Below are some excerpts from the final report of the Commission on Property Tax Relief. You can read the entire report here. The report is on the Fiscal Policy Institute’s website. You don’t have to read it all at once. If your head starts to spin, just take a break and go back to it later. The report is 94 pages plus 40 pages of supporting documentation. It is an interesting document and very well done. Appendix B contains all of the recommendations of the committee.

High property taxes have the most negative impact on low and moderate income working families, seniors on fixed incomes, and small business owners, who must shoulder this burden regardless of their ability to pay. Whether your concern is decreasing education costs, or increasing education spending, or addressing inequities in school funding, or improving programs, virtually all agree the answer cannot be to continue to increase property taxes at the current rate. The rate of increase in property taxes over recent years is unsustainable, and simply unfair to those who cannot afford to pay.

New York schools outside of New York City spend more per student than any state in the nation – an estimated $18,768 in 2008-09. New York’s per student spending is more than 50 percent above the national average. This results from high personnel costs; the number and complexity of mandates and expense of compliance, especially those that govern special education; and the large number of school districts, many of which are small.

The Commission proposes capping annual growth in the property tax levy at 4 percent or 120 percent of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), whichever is less.

The Commission recommends that, after a property tax levy cap is adopted, the State reexamine the STAR program, which provides payments to school districts with no relation to individual taxpayers’ ability to pay and has failed to effectively reduce property tax growth. A new STAR circuit breaker, targeted to relieve the tax burden on individual taxpayers based upon their income and ability to pay, would be a much more equitable way of reducing an individual’s property tax burden.

The Commission recommends that the State support school districts’ efforts to rein in the costs of salaries, pensions and health care, as well as general operating and capital expenses. These recommendations address the root causes of high property taxes by adopting the following proposed solutions:

Increase health insurance premium contributions by employees and provide health insurance coverage jointly with other public employers or school districts, including increased use of health benefit trusts.

Centralize and streamline school district reporting to decrease personnel and other costs associated with sometimes duplicated and unnecessary forms and other filing requirements.

Require consolidation of school districts with fewer than 1,000 students and grant the Commissioner of Education discretionary authority to order consolidation of school districts with fewer than 2,000 pupils to achieve economies of scale and to increase educational opportunities through expanded course offerings.

Create countywide property tax assessment and uniform statewide assessing standards.

Here are some more excerpts from the final report. I picked out what I think are some important points for those of you who don’t won’t to read the entire document. I recommend that you read the entire document though.

Homeowners are “voting with their feet” – selling their homes and moving to escape the high property tax burden. Indeed, census data consistently show New York leading the nation in the number of residents migrating to other states. Almost universally, we heard that the high property tax burden is one of the State’s most pressing problems – and it is only getting worse.

For example, there are almost 700 distinct school districts in New York State. Approximately 200 of these districts enroll fewer than 1,000 children.

New York State has the highest local taxes in America – 78 percent above the national average. New York’s local taxes also rank far above those of other large states. For example, New Jersey has the next highest level of local taxes, but they are only 18 percent above the national average. New Yorkers pay $84 per $1,000 of personal income in local taxes as compared to the national average of $47. When local taxes are combined with State taxes, New York has the highest tax burden of any large state – 35 percent higher than the U.S. average. It is important to note, however, that State taxes are not a primary cause of this high tax burden. New York ranks only 5 percent above the national average in state taxes (at $73 per $1,000 dollars of personal income). It is New York’s local taxes that are particularly high.

There is a significant disparity between the taxes paid by citizens of New York State, not including New York City, when compared to the rest of the nation. Outside New York City property tax represents the greatest proportion, 76 percent, of local taxes. Outside New York City citizens pay $54 out of every $1,000 of income in property taxes, 56 percent above the national average of $35. Total local taxes are 52 percent above the national average.

While property taxes have increased by a total of nearly 54 percent since 2000, wages have risen by only about 26 percent. This underlines how unaffordable property tax bills have become for typical New York families, which makes the State a very costly place to live.

The average teacher in New York earned $58,873 in 2005-06, the latest period available for comparing New York to other states. While the Commission recognizes that a higher cost of living in New York is a contributing factor, this average salary is 17 percent higher than the national average of $50,379.

Benefits, consisting primarily of health care and pension programs have the largest growth factor of any expense category. Benefits averaged 38 percent of salary expense in 2006-07.

There are approximately 700 school districts in New York State, ranging in size from New York City to districts with fewer than eight teachers. Far too many are quite small. About 200, or approximately 28 percent, had fewer than 1,000 students in 2006-07, and over 500 have fewer than 3,000 pupils. Small districts are not limited to rural areas. On Long Island, where there are almost a half million pupils, over one fifth of the more than 120 school districts have fewer than 1,500 students, with an average district size of under 800 students.

In comparison, Florida’s system of countywide school districts includes only 67 districts, and school districts in that state, and in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, which also rely exclusively or extensively on countywide school districts, average approximately 40,000, 36,000, 12,000 and 9,000 students respectively.

There are really two New Yorks: the “downstate” region, which includes the New York City metropolitan area, lower Hudson Valley and Long Island, and the “upstate” region. The state’s high ranking in terms of income is due mostly to conditions downstate. In contrast, upstate cities and their surrounding areas have been losing industries, jobs, and population for many decades – nearly a quarter-million people left New York for other states in 2006 alone. Seventy percent of all school districts have declining enrollment. Absolute population declines would have become an overwhelming trend had it not been for a steady influx of immigrants. However, these immigrants settle predominately in the downstate area, where job possibilities are better, with a relatively smaller proportion choosing to settle upstate.

The report contains many detailed recommendations as to what should be done and why, but it doesn’t say who is going to actually do the work. It doesn’t say when or how the recommendations are going to be implemented either.

I hope that members of the New York State Assembly and our State Senators will read this report and begin to act on the recommendations so that New Yorkers can quickly see real property tax relief. What could they be doing that is more important than this?

You can always call them or email them and ask if they have read the report and how soon they are going to act on the recommendations.

If we New Yorkers pay the highest  property taxes in the United States, maybe we should take the advice of the Commission on Property Tax Relief and start consolidating some school districts. Are there any volunteers to go first?

I would really like to know what you think. Leave a comment or send me an email. Thank you.

Note added 10/6/10 The Times Union of Albany recently published a story called New York’s Property Tax Nightmare. It was written by Bob Port and James M. Odato. Thank you Times Union. It is a great article about out of control property taxes. You can read it here: New York’s Property Tax Nightmare

Note added on September 24, 2009: If you do a Google search on “Why are property taxes so high”, this blog post will come up on the first page at number 6. However you found this site, people continue to read this post because I get “hits” on it everyday. A lot of people are concerned about property taxes. If you read the entire post, I would love to read your comments. What state do you call home? What did you think about the post? What answers were you looking for? Did this post answer any of your questions? Thank you in advance. I hope you enjoy the blog post. John Tedder