We’re coming down to the final stretch before the NYS Budget is due on April 1st. This means that we need all hands-on deck at this crucial moment. Thankfully, NYSBCA is comprised of members who not only have great relationships with their local elected officials (
NYS Assembly /
NYS Senate) but also are very well respected and provide a great service to their school district and communities. (Click on the Assembly or Senate in the previous sentence to search for your representative.)
From March 25th- March 29th, the NYS legislature will be up in Albany every day conducting budget negotiations. It is imperative that you call your local elected officials and stress how important it is to your company that the following item(s) are included/ not included in the final budget:
1.) Support of Sales Tax Exemption:
- Senate Bill 3967 and Assembly Bill 6474
- The tax exemption will enable school bus contractors to give their school districts, parents, and community what they want in terms of additional new buses, upgraded technology and cleaner and greener buses.
- NYSED cost justification form
- New York state and its resident taxpayers are paying the sales tax it has levied on school buses and related parts. School districts, which are funded by both local taxpayers and the state, are forced to use the resources of residents, and even more ironically, the state itself in the form of school aid, to fund its own tax. There is simply no public benefit to the sales tax structure imposed on school buses.
- A yacht, racehorse, plane, ferry boat, tractor, semi-trailer, fishing vessel, coach bus or transit bus, any of those qualify for full or partial sales tax exemptions
- School buses are the ultimate ride sharing example
- Any loss (if any) of revenue to the state from the exemption will not impact this budget as the implementation date is delayed so as to not impact the budget whatsoever.
2.) Opposition to EPP (Employee Protection Provision) included in the final budget
- The Governor Has Already Vetoed EPPs, and His Reasons for Doing So Are Just as Valid Today. The Governor cited a NYS Court of Appeals decision from 2011 that ruled EPP’s are anti-competitive and provide no benefit at a huge cost to taxpayers
- Proponents of EPPs have advanced an absurd paid-for document purporting to find that EPPs save money. It is absurd for numerous reasons, the biggest being that it ignores the grant program as the best evidence of EPPs' cost and instead asserts EPPs would save the cost of the grant program. It is also absurd because it wants the legislature to accept paid-for advocacy over what the neutral courts have already concluded
- No evidence EPPs make kids safer. The reported episodes of busing problems were with company that HAVE EPPs, not companies without EPPs. (RELIANT TRANSPORTATION)
- Not having EPPs is NOT anti-union or anti-labor. Non-EPP contractors have unions that collectively bargain for their members’ wages and benefits just like EPP contractors. In fact, more unions oppose the EPPs than support them. EPPs are merely a mechanism to favor the union that represents EPP contractors over the other unions that represent non-EPP contractors.
- We the association representing the school bus industry (NYSBCA) are not the “driving for our future” coalition and DO NOT SUPPORT THEIR EPP STUDY
Thank you for your help!
Brad Gerstman and Nicole Epstein
Gotham Government Relations and Communications, LLC
NYSBCA's Government Affairs Representatives
