Greg Hudson is reporting in The Daily Mail nearly two dozen current and former veterans turned out to the Catskill Board of Education meeting this week to support a school tax exemption. Prior to the meeting, the public had the opportunity during a public hearing to speak to the board about the benefits of the exemption. Catskill schools alumnus Jason Borgen, an Iraq War veteran and now a staff sargeant in the Air National Guard, introduced the exemption idea to the board two years ago after a state law passed in 2013, declared veterans eligible to apply for a reduction on state, local and school property taxes. An exemption is a tax reduction in school taxes based on the assessed value of a veteran's property. At the school board meeting Wed., Sept. 21, interim superintendent Annemarie Barkman pointed out the exemptions for veterans would come out of the district’s tax levy and as a result, the tax levy on non-veterans would have to increase. According to Borgen, the number of potentially eligible properties is not significant, and the number of veterans living in the Catskill district is decreasing. In 2016, 408 properties, or six percent of the total number of properties paying the school tax districtwide, would be eligible for the exemption. No one present for the hearing spoke against the exemption, and board members said they would take the proposal under consideration. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.