STATEWIDE – "School districts are working under harder conditions," says Lisa Wiles, school superintendent of the Ellenville school district. "We had cuts two years ago and it hasn't been easy to maintain what we have and it's going to get harder. I'm trying not to be miserable about it, but I've been in public education for seventeen years and have never seen this."

What we're all seeing is New York State government balancing its budget with some sleight of hand, and continuing the pressure on our school districts and municipalities.

However, it can also be seen as a continuation of a longer term trend that has seen New York's tax burden shifted from income tax to property taxes.

This began in the early 1970s, and accelerated with the tax cuts of 1994 enacted by Governor Pataki. The effect has been to reduce the burden on the wealthiest New Yorkers, while low and middle-income New Yorkers pay higher shares of their income in state and local taxes.

In the 1970s, New York's top personal income tax rate was 15.375 percent; today, the effective rate is 6.85 percent, the 14th highest among the 42 states that have personal income taxes. Property taxes, however, are the highest in the nation. Moreover, the less wealthy you are, the higher your overall tax rate, with the middle income range paying around 12 percent.

One much belabored effect of this is that it prices many out of their homes and sends them to other states in search of less expensive options. At the same time, there is an often repeated claim that higher income taxes on the wealthy will send them fleeing elsewhere. Of course, there are powerful reasons why wealthy people like living in New York, including the Metropolitan Opera, box seats at Yankee Stadium, plus a wealth of great restaurants and the glittering social life of the most celebrated city in the United States.

If high taxes were going to drive the wealthy away from New York, they'd be gone by now. For a reality check, look at rents in Manhattan, or home prices in Syosset or Scarsdale.

Enter the Gap Elimination Adjustment, which was introduced in 2010 by then Governor Paterson as a "one time only" measure to help close New York's yawning $10 billion budget gap. On a state budget of $140 billion, that was a frightening number.

The Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) was used to spread part of that shortfall across the state's school districts. GEA needs were deducted from the aid that had been promised to school districts. Of course, it has now become a continuing part of the state budget and our school districts — and therefore us — continue to pay for it. Overall more than $6 billion has been cut from school funding.

Ellenville schools lost $8.7 million over the last five years, forcing layoffs and larger class sizes. Pine Bush, a much bigger district, lost $30,883,435 in the same period. Rondout Valley suffered similar pain.

That pain continues. The budget for 2014-15 demands that school districts and municipalities hold the line on property tax increases, keeping under the 2 percent tax cap. But the GEA continues, even though this year's budget is the fourth balanced budget in a row.

Of course it's an election year, so the governor and legislature put some tax relief in the package. The income tax for manufacturers was cut from 5.9 percent to zero. A 20 percent tax credit was added in for manufacturers, too. The governor wants to be seen as pro-business and he wants job creation, and he feels the best engines for that are manufacturers.

But there have also come some less obvious maneuvers. There is $1.5 billion in property tax relief for home owners, but the catch is that their municipalities and school districts must stay within the 2 percent tax cap and develop plans to further reduce the tax levy.

Part of this is the push towards consolidation. One prime problem in New York is the wealth of taxing authorities, with villages, towns, school districts and counties all in the game. Shared services is something that the state wants to encourage.

But — keep this in perspective — the $1.5 billion is spread over three years and affects 2.8 million taxpayers.

Meanwhile, many educators are still wondering... where does Albany think New York public education is going to end up under this regime?

Governor Cuomo is clearly aware of the widespread anger and despair aroused by the weight of property taxes. During the budget negotiations he said, "I can't remember the last time you saw a cut in property taxes, so it would really be something special for those communities."

However, he is clearly in no mood to contemplate pushing some of that weight back onto the income taxes paid by the wealthiest, nor is the legislature.

The budget commits to investing $1.5 billion over five years to support the phasing in of a statewide Universal Pre-K program. There's a $2 billion bond — "Smart Schools" — to fund technology improvements in schools such as high speed broadband, as well as construction of new classroom space for Pre-K students.

And, of course, there's $1.1 billion, a 5.3 percent increase, in state aid to education, and this money will be skewed to high-needs school districts. For many it will come just in time. Approximately a third of New York's 700 school districts face insolvency — being unable to pay for all the federal and state mandates for services and instruction — within a few years. That concern does not seem to trouble Albany, and unfunded mandates continue to rain down, even as funding is withdrawn in complicated ways for previous mandates.

So... the state took away $6 billion, forced massive cuts to middle and lower income school districts, and now is giving back $1 billion as a palliative measure in an election year.

As Dr. Richard Timbs, of the statewide School Finance Consortium puts it, "They had a gap; you eliminated it for them."