It is often said that families that send their children to non-public schools have to “pay twice”, once for their own children and again in the form of property taxes for the public school children.

This is certainly a hardship for some families.

However,  it should not be ignored that private schools do receive lots of publically funded services also.

In 2007, the East Ramapo school district did a study, comparing the taxes collected from families that use non-public schools and the cost of providing services to these schools.

Their estimate was that non-public school families pay approximately $16,509,236 in property tax.

The estimate of cost of services provided to non-public schools was $28,415,785!

So, as a whole, in 2007 the “non-public school community” was receiving $11,906,549 MORE from the district than the parents were paying in taxes!

Since 2007, with Haredi domination of the school board, services to the non-public schools have skyrocketed.  Also, it is likely that the district underestimated public expense for non-public schools as they did not include all federal Title I spending on non-public schools. It is possible that 30% of the school budget is now being spent on non-public school services.