ALVERTON PA – If public sentiment last week in the Southmoreland School District outside Pittsburgh was any indication of feelings Pennsylvania property owners hold toward tax increases next year, the Pottsgrove School District and others may have a difficult road ahead of them in passing a 2011-’2012 budget.
Southmoreland High School in Alverton PA
Southmoreland residents reportedly arrived up-in-arms Thursday (Feb. 10, 2011) at its school board meeting, and demanded that board members abandon their requests for special permissions from the state – called exemptions – to raise property taxes higher than a Pennsylvania-legislated cap of 1.3 percent, known as the Act 1 index.
The battered board agreed. As a result school taxes on the average Southmoreland home valued at $100,000 can rise no more than $130 next year, The Pennsylvania Independent online news service reported Friday (Feb. 11). Southmoreland’s preliminary budget initially proposed a tax hike of $420, more than three times the cap.
- Read the article by reporter Eric Boehm, titled “Citizens Defeat Property Tax Increase In Westmoreland County” and published Friday in The Independent, here.
Southmoreland is located 246 miles west of Sanatoga village in the Pittsburgh suburb of Alverton PA, Westmoreland County.
The Pottsgrove district is considered poor by Pennsylvania standards, so its state-imposed cap on next year’s tax increase is slightly higher: 1.8 percent. If enacted it would yield only $74 in additional tax revenue next year from Pottsgrove’s average home. Pottsgrove school directors, however, have already submitted their requests for exemptions.
The district $58.5 million preliminary budget currently carries a potential tax increase of 5.2 percent, or $215. A combination of exemptions and budget cuts may allow Pottsgrove to enact a hike somewhere near the middle of the range, at about 3.6 percent or $150 per average home, Business Administrator David Nester said recently.
Southmoreland district residents were said to have exerted heavy political pressure to move their board away from exemptions. The (Connellsville PA) Daily Courier newspaper a week earlier reported budget activists presented petitions from about 200 voters who claimed they would oppose the re-election of any Southmoreland school director “who voted to increase taxes.”
By comparison, the mood so far in Pottsgrove is anything but contentious. Except for news reporters and school administrators, few if any district residents have appeared at, much less voiced opinions on, the local board’s budget discussions.
How much the Pottsgrove budget can be cut, and how much Pottsgrove directors are willing to cut, is yet unknown. Category-by-category scrutiny of district spending plan begins Tuesday (Feb. 15), when its Community Budget Task Force meets for the first time.
An analysis conducted by The (Harrisburg PA) Patriot-News newspaper shows that tax-hiking exemptions now discarded by Southmoreland and being sought by Pottsgrove are likely to be approved. The Patriot-News reported Feb. 6 that Act 1, the 2006 legislative effort to slow school tax increases, “has been a failure” in part because the state Department of Education routinely grants the permission that gives districts license to exceed their caps.
- Read the article by reporter Nick Malawskey, titled “Act 1 doesn’t slow tax hike, study shows” and published Feb. 6 by The Patriot-News, here.
Related (to the Pottsgrove School District 2011-2012 budget):
- Does Western PA School Tax Uprising Foretell Mood Here?
- Pottsgrove Schools Budget Short Another $400,000
- Pottsgrove, As Expected, Adopts Budget First Draft
- Pottsgrove Tentative Budget Adoption Expected
- Weather Postpones Pottsgrove Budget Meeting
- Still Time In Pottsgrove For Budget Volunteers To Enlist
- Challenge To Pottsgrove Budget Advisers: 10 Percent
- Best Guesses, Deficit Launch Pottsgrove Budget Season
- Senate Education Chair Preps For Voucher, Choice Battle
- School Board Questions Pottsgrove Recreation Costs
- Pension Reform Vote Could Benefit Pottsgrove, Others
- Notebook Worthy: News Reporters Made News Tuesday
- Pottsgrove Isn’t Waiting In Search For Budget Volunteers
- If You’ve Got A Budget Idea, Pottsgrove Says It’ll Listen
- Pottsgrove Seeks More Public Input On District Budget
As we see, property taxes for schools are getting ridiculous. Many of us are on fixed incomes and are in jobs where raises never happen anymore. This constant spiral upward of school taxes and expenses, especially constant teacher salary raises, is getting old.
Perhaps we need to get “up in arms” and begin protesting locally here.