Last month in Southampton Town voters rejected school budgets as they learned of increases
in the assessed value of their property.
Funding of public schools by a state-wide income tax has been advocated by some writers to Long Island media.
A Homeowner's Tax Reform Commission was formed by the Suffolk Legislature to explore alternatives for funding public schools. Lisa Tyson, director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition and a member of the Tax Commision told WPKN news that
"The state needs to pay more money to fund education. They need to pay a larger percent. We need to change the state aid formula to be based on needs .... the state needs to take a larger percentage of the school funding.The Tax Reform Commission will be having public hearings at its next meeting scheduled for July 25 in Hauppage and again in August at the County Center in Riverhead.
That will gradually change school funding issues and we will stop having people voting down their school budgets."
From a report prepared by WPKN's Long Island News Team for WPKN/WPKM local news
at 6:30pm each weekday on WPKN Bridgeport 89.5 and WPKM Montauk 88.7.
