Guilderland’s March 10 school board meeting began with applause for winning athletes. This was followed by more applause for the Dutchmen Robotics Team after they demonstrated the robots they had built.

A team member told the board, “One of the many things I’ve learned in robotics this year, I’ve learned the value of teamwork. I used to be a person who would do most of the group projects by themselves.”

But, through his work with the robotics team, he said, “I’ve learned that, for every group project, you need to rely on your teammates to succeed. Just doing it yourself is no way to go forward here in school and further along in life.

“I’ve also learned the value of perseverance. Throughout the construction of a robot, our team met many challenges, which we solved in creative ways, like repurposing scrap into functional parts and this is a skill I believe that I can carry over to my schoolwork and to my life outside of school.”

Two fathers of robotics team members then spoke of the worth of the team. One told the board about the energy and talent and teamwork he’d observed at competitions. The other said his son loved building robots. “His main motivation to come to school is robotics,” he said.

Later that night, the board heard a long list of proposed cuts to sports and to club activities. The district is faced with a $4.1 million budget gap between projected revenues and expenses. And, even with the proposed $2.3 million in cuts, more are needed to fill the gap.

As we listened to that long list, we imagined there were students and parents who could speak about the value of each activity with just as much passion as the robotics team.

We also had a terrible sense of déja-vu. During the Great Recession, Guilderland dipped into its fund balance since the state had phased out aid to districts through the gap elimination adjustment.

With the shortfall in state aid, Guilderland cut many positions and also drew on its reserves. From 2010 to 2014, Guilderland cut over 150 full-time posts as it tried to close a gap left by stagnant state aid; declining property values; and increasing salary, health, and pension costs.

It wasn’t pretty. Some of the programs — like foreign-language instruction in the elementary grades — never came back. 

One of the parents at a packed Guilderland budget forum in 2014 — the forum was titled “Still in Peril” — was the father of four daughters. He said he moved to Guilderland for the schools and he now had “a general sense of dismay.” He said that his daughter entering elementary school would not be getting the same education as his daughter who was about to graduate from high school.

Some parents and teachers lobbied for special-needs; others lobbied for gifted students. Some pushed to keep advanced courses while others said those courses could be better cut than expanding class sizes.

No one wants to see their community live in a general sense of dismay. No one wants to see valued staffers lose their jobs. No one wants the activities students learn from — for some, the reason they go to school — to be cut.

So what is the solution?

Two state-level changes could make a difference for Guilderland and schools across New York. We’ve advocated for each many times on this page to no avail.

One is to restructure the way schools are funded. Property tax is regressive and in New York it pays for the bulk of village, town, county, library, and school services.

Responding to a lawsuit from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the state started using a Foundation Aid formula in 2007 that was to be what its name implies — the groundwork on which schooling is built. Our state’s top court decided that New York is to provide a sound basic education to each student in its public schools.

The formula was designed to account for what it costs a district to educate each student, with more money allocated for districts that have more economically disadvantaged students, or more students with disabilities, or more students from other countries learning English. The formula also takes into account how much money a district can raise locally.

Although Foundation Aid is finally being fully funded by the state, the formula after two decades needs updating.

More than a decade ago, responding to complaints over property taxes, the state imposed a levy limit, which was a Band-Aid instead of a needed overhaul of the funding system. A district like Guilderland, which funds two-thirds of its budget from property taxes, is rightfully wary of piercing that cap, which requires a supermajority vote, and so is hamstrung.

The second state-level change is the need to have a fair property assessment system across New York. 

Currently, the state has a patchwork of assessment systems and methods with no coherent oversight or teeth to ensure compliance. With 1,000 jurisdictions, there are 1,000 methods of assessment. We’ve written many times on this page of the need for a single, enforceable system.

Also unlike most states, New York has no law requiring revaluation at certain intervals — international standards say there should be a review every six years.

Guilderland completed a town-wide property revaluation in 2019, the first since 2005. Guilderland, in 2017, had experienced a huge drop in its state-set equalization rate, which resulted in steep tax increases for residents on the edges of town with property in other school districts.

We commended the town on this page in 2017 for appealing the equalization rate. The assessor at the time, Karen VanWagenen, said she pursued the appeal because the dramatic drop hurt the town’s most vulnerable residents — those who get age, agriculture, veteran, and business exemptions.

While the town’s appeal was unsuccessful, it laid bare the problems with the current state system.

At the 2017 hearing, each of the three members on the state’s Office of Real Property Tax Service Board conceded the state’s system was flawed.

Guilderland was represented at the hearing by Laurence Farbstein, president of Industrial & Utility Valuation Consultants. He argued that assessments should be made countywide and that the current system of small, random sampling can lead to inaccuracies.

Guilderland’s commercial sample in 2017 was based on just five properties: Stuyvesant Plaza, the Hampton Inn, and three apartment complexes.

“There is a disconnect,” Farbstein said. When regional trends show a 1-percent adjustment factor, he said, it makes no sense that Guilderland’s commercial properties were valued at $935 million in 2015 and $1.26 billion in 2017 — an increase of 35 percent. “Either the trend bears no relationship to what’s happening in a community or … the selection process and the way the properties are chosen have skewed the numbers,” Farbstein said.

In responding for the state, Paul Miller noted that the town of Guilderland includes Crossgates Mall. He said that, at one time, “20 percent of retail in the Capital District was going through that mall.” Miller said further that, since the owner of that property won’t provide data, “we have to select other property.”

To ignore Guilderland’s major commercial center simply because the owners of Crossgates Mall wouldn’t cooperate, clearly highlights the problem: New York needs a state law with enforcement teeth.

At a subdued Guilderland School Board meeting on March 16, about 70 people listened as board members questioned administrators. Board member Tara Molloy-Grocki threw up her hands and asked why neighboring districts aren’t experiencing a similar shortfall.

The district’s assistant superintendent for business, Andrew Van Alstyne, responded that Guilderland entered into the pandemic with less savings than other districts and that it suffered from a wave of tax challenges, which resulted in large reductions for the value of Crossgates Mall and other properties. After Guilderland used up the reserves it had set aside for paying back over-levied taxes, it took out a bond, which it will be paying for more than a decade, he said.

While state-level changes are unlikely, we urge the town of Guilderland to do what it should — take on another townwide property revaluation.

Pyramid and other commercial entities benefited in court because of the slump in sales caused by the pandemic. The pandemic is now behind us. And there has been much development in town since the last  revaluation, including major apartment complexes, and, still in progress, a cancer-treatment center, and a Costco warehouse.

The school district suffered millions of dollars in losses from tax certiorari suits; it could equally benefit from a reassessment now as would the library, the county, and the town itself.

It has been seven years since the last revaluation, past the international standard. The town owes a fair assessment to its citizens. This will help put the school district on sounder financial footing in the years ahead. It is also the right thing to do for every property owner in town.

As the young Dutchmen Robotics team member said, “For every group project, you need to rely on your teammates to succeed.”

The town should be working for the good of its residents, which in turn will help better fund its children’s education.