My name is sue, how do you do?
Monroe County School Boards met tonight, in Henrietta, to vote on a measure to bring a Class Action Suit against Monroe County in response to Maggie’s Intercept Plan:
More fallout from the decision by the republican majority in the county legislature to shift sales tax revenue to pay for the local portion of Medicaid. Democrats opposed the move. Area school districts now say they will sue the county. There are 24 school districts including several from outside Monroe County but whose district boundaries include portions of Monroe. And they get Monroe County sales tax money.
A reader who attended the meeting said that, of those schools who had a quorum, the vote was unanimous. Those few who did not, were planning on meeting individually with their own boards, to also vote in favor of the suit.
In her D&C Guest Essay of Sept 30th, Jody Seigle states:
County-level decisions do not overrule New York state law. The Morin-Ryan agreement for sharing sales tax money is state law and the county has no authority to change it. Additionally there is no evidence that the state Legislature wrote the intercept law intending it to allow a county to alter pre-existing sharing agreements. When situations like this go to court, justices ask what was the legislative intent behind a law, and we think the answer will be clear.
In Stlo7’s post of today, Ted O’Brien is questioning the legality of the Intercept. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Ted an attorney?, and wouldn’t he have a little insight into this?, and gee, it looks like you’ve painted yourself into a corner Miss Maggie.
Related posts:
I believe that each school district with a quorum did vote in favor of suing so the roll call vote was unanimous. Not every board had a unanimous vote within itself, but it was pretty overwhelming in favor apparently.
exactly!
I think the schools should act, but if I understand the consequences of this divisive act by the county, it is…our town tax dollars will be spent suing our county, which will defend the lawsuit with our county tax dollars, to preserve our schools’ access to…our county and state tax dollars. How did we fail to waste our federal tax dollars too?
I see what you’re saying. Perhaps in this situation, the Federal tax dollars are not there to waste, in the form of “No child left behind”, an unfunded mandate.
I’m not sure though, I have a hard time thinking like a Republican legislator.
So the 11:00 news reports Brooks as saying, in sum and substance, that nothing will stop her from protecting the property owners in Monroe County. Picture this - Maggie Brooks, in a suit of armor, sword poised, standing protectively in front of the hordes of cowering property tax owners as they face attack by the scary, dangerous…schoolchildren.
O’Brien is correct. It’s STATE money allocated through the collection of STATE sales tax that BROOKS has decided to appropriate in a manner with which she dictates, in contravention of the agreements held by the STATE. She further violates the law by appropriating increases in STATE funding of schools mandating that increases will make up for what she TAKES.
O’Brien is correct in asking the important question - “What gives BROOKS the authority to supercede the appropriations of the State of New York or the NYS Department of Education?”
The taxpayers are correct in asking the question “What gives her the RIGHT to assume she has the authority to TAKE what she doesn’t OWN and passing the buck on to the taxpayers through an increase in school taxes?”
She’s a petty thief - corrupt middleman for the Minarik machine and the GOP as a whole. This is the equivalent to “The Decider” having us believe that by bringing the surge troops home he is reducing the troops in Iraq. They think we’re stupid. We need to teach them we’re NOT.
To charles’ point, about what tax-payer dollars aren’t being wasted…
Monroe County School Board’s Association initiated this as a Class Action suit so as to facilitate one legal action instead of dozens. I think that’s a conservative and prudent action.
The challenge, as I heard it, has to go to a state court, where the AG’s office is obliged to argue in favor of the state’s right to offer the swap, and the county’s right to avail itself of the option. Listening in on a School Board member speaking to a County Lej member, the riskiest part of this initiative is the question of what judge hears the case, as the Republicans have somewhat packed the courts after 8 years of Pataki, and there aren’t too many “friendly” judges.
My question, to whatever legal beagles are reading, is: how many other counties have sales tax sharing agreements like our Moran-Ryan agreement? Much has been made of the fact that Monroe is the only county to accept the swap offer prior to the deadline. It may also be that we are the only county that is prohibited from participating in the swap by virtue of preexisting and legally binding encumberances on the sales tax revenues.
Here’s what I don’t get. Aren’t the Monroe Co suburbs Maggie’s base? There’s nothing suburbanites hold more dear than the reputations of their schools. Maggie’s plan shafts her base. Seems like dumb politics from someone who’s usually pretty politically astute.
I’m not saying the schools shouldn’t sue. I’m just saying that a lawsuit was completely forseeable by Brooks, and if there’d been more input from all parties it might have been avoidable by formulation of a plan whose legality is not so questionable. So it’s just another waste of money which should be better spent, and we’re the ones getting brooksed again.
A better question may be: Who exactly is paying for these F.A.I.R. commercials that are running non-stop and around the clock on all the networks?
It better NOT be the taxpayers!
I’ve been told it’s Maggie’s campaign money she has saved up, but I would think the commercials should say that?
Ted O’Brien speaking on Brother Wease show right now
Hey, Jiminy-do you suppose you could photo shop this one?
[...] Yesterday, we reported on the Monroe County School Boards’ plan to sue the county over the Brooks/Minarik tax intercept plan. The D&C has more today: The resolution approved at Wednesday’s meeting of school officials authorizes a lawsuit, with some school boards voting on the floor to join the suit. [...]
[...] (I guess we can safely assume, now, that the school districts will sue.) [...]
The upshot of Ted O’Brien’s appearance on Brother Wease was that Wease and his co-hosts (and guest Jack Garner) felt the whole thing was too complicated to understand. Wease suggested that they need a very simple graphic to show what is going on, so ordinary people could understand it.
So, I challenge all Dems (and anyone else outraged by F.A.I.R.) to come up with a simple explanation of this whole thing. Here’s my simple explanation, without graphics. Your comments are welcome.
1. The Monroe County budget has a huge deficit.
2. The Monroe County Republicans, led by Maggie Brooks, have taken money that was sent by New York State to the school districts to balance their budget. Voila! No more deficit.
3. Schools in Monroe County now have 50% less state funding than they expected.
4. To make up for this shortfall to the schools, towns will have to pass massive property tax increases.
I would also like to point out that the Morin/Ryan agreement not only specifies what percentage of the pie the school districts get, it also specifies the size of the pie at slicing time.
(as one astute participant noted last night, “maybe we need to make the pie higher“)
Except the towns, primarily controlled by the GOP won’t increase taxes. This would make voters turn against Brooks and the GOP. They will dump the shortfall on school boards who will make massive cuts or have massive increases.
This is similar to reassessments in property. Anything they can do to get more without actually “raising taxes” and shifting blame to others is the plan. So whether it’s the increased “value” of your property, or the increased “costs” of your schools - they’ll get their backdoor handout and tell you on election day what a fine job they’re doing.
Hogwash.