East Ramapo Residents Vote Down Budget that Would Have Raised Property Taxes by Almost 4%

By Sarah Morgenstern

The residents of East Ramapo successfully voted down their school board’s $262,544,765 budget yesterday because they said it would have kept their property taxes among the highest in the nation.

The East Ramapo residents who voted against the budget are not at odds with the local school district, but rather, they would like the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to provide the school district with more funding than the 33% of the budget it now provides.

“We agree that the school district needs to have a nice budget, have good education, and everything should be funded,” explained a private citizen who mobilized his chevra, via voice mail messages and posters to vote against the budget: either in person or by absentee ballot. “We just think the NYSED should provide more funding, rather than collecting so much of the money for the budget from our property taxes.”

The activist explained that the NYSED reasons that it can provide East Ramapo with less funding because 75% of the area's children attend private schools.

Despite earning lower average incomes than the rest of the country, taxpayers in East Ramapo are asked to fund more than 66% of their budget, explained a resident, who said that he would like East Ramapo residents to pay for only 30% of the schools' budget, just as New York City residents do.

In New York City, where 80% of children attend public school, a larger number of children are thought to benefit from public funding, therefore the NYSED provides the city with more money from the state.

In East Ramapo, however, residents are left struggling to pay for educational programs for which their children barely benefit.

“While a public-school kid costs about $25,500 a year to the budget, a private school student costs only about $1,500,” the East Ramapo activist pointed out.

Although, for now, East Ramapo successfully blocked the school district’s budget, they might have to vote again: when the school board has another chance to release its budget on June 21.