When Should a School Board Send for the Lawyers?

"Focus is a matter of deciding what things you're not going to do." - John Carmack 

The board of the Northport-East Northport school district voted unanimously yesterday to file a lawsuit to stop LIPA from proceeding with tax certiorari proceedings.

Tax certiorari (it's pronounced "SIR - sure - ree" - now you can impress your friends) is the legal process by which a property owner can challenge the real estate tax assessment on a given property in attempt to reduce the property's assessment and its real estate taxes.  Basically, LIPA is grieving its taxes, much as you or I would do.

The district's suit hangs, somewhat precariously, on the notion that LIPA is in breach of a written promise not to seek tax certiorari relief before 2013.  There may have been a promise breached, but the issue at hand is really just one of money.  The Northport-East Northport school district receives over $30 million a year from LIPA.  The loss of that revenue could mean that the Northport-East Northport school and library districts would face a 50 percent tax increase, not to mention a 10 percent tax hike to the rest of us in the township. 

But the merits of the lawsuit are not what interest me.  What interests me is the question, raised once more, of whether a school board ought to be involved in this way, in matters outside of "education," in matters that some have argued are beyond its purview.

It is an incredibly important question.  And one that has been the preoccupation of the current race in my school district, even though our legal activities pale in comparison to that of Northport and others.

This past March, forty-one school districts in Nassau County (41!) filed suit to challenge an amendment to the county charter that would leave them liable for successful tax certiorari claims of homeowners.  Why did they file suit?  Because it could cost those districts over $50 million in refunds every year, and it would come at a time when the districts are already suffering deep cuts in state aid.  These school districts aren't the ones making the errors in the tax assessments, but they are the ones being asked to pay for the corrections.  If those school boards did nothing; if they kept their "focus" elsewhere and restrained from filing suit over what is, after all, a tax matter - then they would be the ones forced to use their "education" dollars to pay for a municipal government's mistakes.  In a purely risk/reward sense, I believe the small amount spent on lawyers (a few thousand in a budget of $109 million in our own case) is well worth the protection from a potential revenue drain in the millions.

Public school education is really an equation, a balancing act between two competing interests.  Everyone running for a seat has voiced strong opinions on how our money is spent, whether it covers programs, or teachers, or transportation, or the use of facilities, or the administration.  But that is only half the equation.  The other half, the half whose focus is presumably not on "education," is the revenue side - our tax base - the money that we are able to bring into the system, to pay the bills that make all the rest (programs, teachers, transportation, facilities and administration) possible.  That revenue side of the equation is equally important and equally critical.

And these days, it is equally threatened.  It is threatened in Town Hall by development interests obsessed with building tax-negative housing in a glutted market and getting it started before their next election cycle.  It is threatened in Albany by a state government pursuing an ill-conceived and frankly dangerous tax cap.  And it is threatened at home by the battle fatigue we all feel deep in our bones, having spent more than a year running from meeting to meeting, half-neglecting our families, wondering all the while why it has to be so hard and when it will finally be over.

It would be easy to neglect it, to "focus" our attention elsewhere.  After all, it's only money.  And it can get messy.  But this is how it works.  Money is the lifeblood of our school district.  This is how we can afford to educate our children.  And whatever we think of those other parts of our government, no one shares our same interests.  If we don't look out for those interests, no one else will.  I believe that is common sense.  I believe it is a prime responsibility of the school board.  And I believe it is at the heart of the duty of a school board trustee.