posted by Joe Polk at 7:13 AM /
The school board approved a $70,890,733 budget Monday that includes no tax increase and holds millage at 23.56 mills.
Link: www.postgazette.com/pg/07144/788433-55.stm
Link: www.postgazette.com/pg/07144/788433-55.stm
Labels: school board, school district
29 Comments:
No increase. Wow. Highest SAT scoors among public schools in P.A. and no increase. I'm very satisified.
With that said, $70 million dollars....oh how times have changed...
We have over a 1 mill increase in budget dollars but no increase in millage.
How much more did the business manager over tax us last year?
You can abuse a community when the board won’t read a budget?
All Mt. Lebanon residents should thank their neighbors who purchased homes between 2002 and 2005. They are the reason there is no millage increase. The Mt. Lebanon School District fought their assessment appeals and won nearly all of those appeals. That means your new neighbors are paying taxes based on their purchase price in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. Look them up on the Allegheny County website and check "appeal status". They are paying significantly more in taxes than everyone else on their street. Some lucky new homeowners had their appeals uncontested by the School District and had their assessed values lowered to the 2002 value like everyone else in Mt. Lebanon and all of Allegheny County. A School Director was one of the lucky ones! Her taxes were lowered back to the 2002 # and decreased by a few thousand a year. (She owes a big thank you to the Mt. Lebanon Commisssioners for that and a big thank you to the School District employee who failed to facilitate communication between the School Directors and Commissioners. Oh well, most of the homeowners that are over-assessed are trying to sell their homes and get out of Mt. Lebanon. I wish them luck. Mt. Lebanon is becoming a town that only the rich can afford.
I really hope all the homes go back to 2002. It is a real shame to see houses for sale (see howardhanna.com) and see how all over the place the taxes are. Lebo is totally screwing these people.
Currently, Here is how absurd it is: (directly from howardhanna.com / allegheny county website)
1, House on Woodhaven listed at $419K with property taxes of $6,238.00
2. House on Markham listed at $308K with property taxes of $9,136.00. ($241.50 more in taxes if you buy this much smaller house) - Purchased between 2002 and 2005....
3. House listed on Sandrae for $259K with property taxes of $7,142.00
4. House listen on Sundridge for $212K with property taxes of $5,681(half the price of the woodhaven, but assessment almost the same)
I also saw an elected officials assement go down $50K after they were elected, and according to the Allegheny County website, there were no appeals......very interesting.
1) Could we have good SAT scores for $60 million? Which factor makes the bigger difference: a) kids from families committed to their education, or b) how much money is spent?
2) Are we prepared for a 20-25% increase in taxes over the next few years? If the district borrows $100 million for a new high school that is about 4 miils or 15% right there. Add in the normal increases for lucrative employee contracts and the retirement costs that are coming in 2010 or 2011 and it can be 25% easily in 4 years.
3) And as far as being over taxed. Last school year there was a $4 million surplus transferred to the capital projects fund. (worth about 2 mills) No one knows how much surplus is in this school years budget. The administration says they can never tell until the year closes, after the millage is set for the new year. How about monitoring the actual spend against budget through the year?
4) As far as the assessments go. The COUNTY screwed this up by attempting to freeze the existing inequities in the system rather than continue to fix it. The School Board and Township are clean on this one. And they should be monitoring appeals. Properties shopuld be assessed at their 2002 market values ... NOT 2002 assessed values. Otherwise inequities keep going and going and going. Like the Energizer Bunny.
Upper St. Clair also is appealing the home purchases from 2002-2005. I don't know where these people are moving if they want to continue to be in a top school district and not pay the taxes.
to answer the question about where are these people moving to, basically they could move anywhere (St Clair, Quaker Valley, Mt Lebanon, etc)
Their problem is basically bad luck...purchasing a house from 2002 through 2005 until Allegheny County went to the 2002 base year assessments.
Their problem is basically bad luck...purchasing a house from 2002 through 2005 until Allegheny County went to the 2002 base year assessments.
If that's the case, couldn't the owners in question just sell the houses to a family member (outside the household like a parent or sibling), and either buy it back a month later or lease it back from them for the cost of the mortgage payments? They'd still have to pay some transaction fees, but not realtor's fees, and they'd get to keep the house.
I find it somewhat disturbing that on a day that we learn (i) there will be no tax increase, (ii) Mt. Lebanon is the third best school district in the Commonwealth, and (iii) one of the best schools in the country, everyone wants to cry and complain. If our rankings go down, will the same folks complain about that but expect improvement at no cost? If we cut the budget, would the same folks complain if services, performance and rankings fall?
I would urge the whiners to take a look at the budgets for St. Clair ($53 million) and Peters ($43 million). While they are not as high as Mt. Lebanon's, they are probably very comparable given the number of students, the overall population, facilities, etc.
Also, if the perpetual whiners believe that the property assessments are only out of whack in Mt. Lebanon, then I would simply urge you to do your homework. It is a countywide problem with no quick and easy solution.
My response to these perpetual whiners is the same advice that I offer to folks that complain about their jobs. Specifically, no one is forcing you to stay. If the grass is truly greener, please feel free to go mow it. I, for one, am not stopping you. On the other hand, feel free to stay and attempt to properly right the wrongs that you perceive to be dragging us down. I'm not stopping you from doing that either.
Just please stop the sophomoric rhetoric and pointless complaining.
Dave,
1. Yes, assessments are unfair in other places too. Nobody has ever said that they are not. But this is a Lebo website, so we discuss Lebo's problems. Maybe if you were paying $300 more per month than your neighbor who lives in a house that costs twice as much as yours you would like a place to complain to. Bloglebo is that place. Sounds like you think people should just pay the bill and not try to make things fair....
2. Please, the nobody is forcing you to stay thing is typical Pittsburgh talk....don't fix things, just tell people to leave. Maybe this is a reason Allegheny County has lost more residents than anywhere else except New Orleans......Really, instead of the "if you don't like it get out", why don't we all try to get together to fix things around here....again, Bloglebo is a place where we can discuss these things.... (as well as state the positive...I was the person who wrote the 1st statement about being satisfied....)
3. And for those people who complained about the high taxes, although I'm satisfied, I assume there are ways to make things better there....Especially if we are $17 million higher than St Clair.......
Bloglebo is a great place... :)
Anon 9:03:
I wholeheartedly agree that Blog Lebo is a great place. However, my frustration lies with those who think that that by anonymously ranting on a blog with sarcasm and rhetorical questions their problems will be solved.
How many Anon posters have attended more than one Commission Meeting? How many Anon posters have attended more than one School Board Meeting? How many Anon posters have volunteered to serve their community by holding a non-elected position on one of Mt. Lebanon's many boards and authorities? How many Anon posters have attended any meeting of the County Council?
I ask these questions simply because those are the proper forums to raise your complaints, concerns, questions and solutions. That’s where - as you desire - people truly come together to solve their problems. Our taxes won't go down, our schools won't improve, our assessments won't be corrected and the overall quality of our region won't improve if we all sit at home and blog. You might feel better for a few minutes by slamming a local official and his/her policies on a blog, but nothing will change. Trust me. Most politicians probably don’t even read blogs.
In your post, you stated, "Sounds like you think people should just pay the bill and not try to make things fair...." That couldn't be further from the truth. I appealed my assessment for my first house and was successful. I didn't just pay what I thought was an unfair bill. Similarly, when I bought my second home in Mt. Lebanon in 2005, I did my homework. I knew that many of the assessments in Allegheny County were (and remain) out of whack. I also knew that the County was moving to fair market value system for assessments. Logically, that meant that the purchase price for a new home that would significantly exceed the current assessment would wildly increase the property tax for that house. Therefore, while property assessment wasn't the only factor in my decision to buy my house, it was an important one. I chuckle at people in Mt. Lebanon who think of nothing about spending $500,000 for a house, but then complain when the assessed value goes from $325,000 to $500, 000.
Also, your comment about paying more than your neighbors who live in an expensive house is a flawed argument. If your neighbor's taxes go up, yours will not likely go down. Perhaps if the County solved the property assessments uniformly once and for all Mt. Lebanon might be in a position to reduce its millage (since the tax base will be based on presumably higher property assessments and by law Mt. Lebanon cannot reap a windfall), but that will not likely significantly reduce your tax bill or my tax bill. After all, under a corrected system many property assessments will go up, but others will certainly go down. It will balance out. Plus, the township and the school district will not likely begin operating with less money. Any reduction would be negligible.
The other flaw in the "my-neighbor-doesn't-pay-enough" argument is that you are paying the RIGHT amount. The fact that your neighbor is skating free for a few years doesn't entitle you to a reduction in your taxes. While it is difficult to generalize these issues, those of us who pay more than our neighbors are paying our fair share under the fair market system. For example, if you were to appeal you property assessment, the first question you would be asked is "Mr. Anon, what would you expect to sell your house for if you could sell it tomorrow?" My guess is that your response would be at least the amount of the current assessment and probably much, much more. As result, your property taxes are correctly formulated. Your neighbor's may be incorrect, but yours are not.
Your venom over the flawed property assessments is also misguided. Mt. Lebanon does not control these numbers. Sure, they can appeal those that they feel are incorrect, but please understand they cannot do so randomly, and I would argue that our resources are perhaps better spent on other more important tasks. It is our obligation as residents and voters in Allegheny County (not simply Mt. Lebanon) to demand change in this area. Instead of blogging against the School Board or the Commissioners on this site (which will never cure the problem), I would invite you to attend a County Council meeting and speak up. Or, in the alternative, visit the website for Vince Gastgeb (http://www.gastgeb.com/) and leave him a message requesting change. Or perhaps visit Barbara Logan's campaign site (http://www.loganforcountycouncil.com/) and request a meeting with her to discuss this issue. I'm sure she would love to speak with you and she may end up as our next representative on County Council. And finally, your State Rep. Matt Smith has regular office hours at his South Hills office on Castle Shannon Blvd. and I know firsthand that Matt very much enjoys meeting with his constituents and discussing their problems. He regularly hosts open houses that you can attend as well.
I guess my point is simply this, blogs, while great places to anonymously and creatively speak your mind, are not a replacement for good old fashioned civic involvement. In my humble opinion, you’re not entitled to complain if you refuse to personally get involved.
I think that I disagree with the conclusion that you shouldn't complain if you don't personally start showing up at commission or committee meetings. There are lots of ways to be involved in your community, and simply sharing opinions and information about what's going on (including what you like and don't like) is one of them, and a good one. Not everyone has the time or training to be an activist/expert, and even if you are an activist/expert you'll choose to direct your energies to some things and not to others. But everyone is entitled to express an opinion.
Do local politicians and staff read this blog? I know that some of them do.
Dave, you make some terrific points. You underlying premise is entirely correct; the way you effect change is to get involved.
However, during the last few years the influence of the blogosphere has been well documented. There have been national stories broken on blogs, there have been conspiracy theories debunked on blogs, and major media outlets many times reference blog websites when doing reporting.
For me, the complaining done by the previous poster was actually informative. It gives me an idea of how much frustration is out there regarding real estate taxes. I was one of those people that bought a home from 2002-2005 and honestly, I had no idea that this was a period of adjustment for the assessments of homes. It makes me think that paying $5000 a year in taxes on a $180,000 home may be out of whack with what the rest the community might be paying and I will start looking into it.
While the blogosphere will never truly be able to replace community activism, I still feel that it is influential and important piece of our community. My only issue with blogs, and I think you might agree, is that too often there is more complaining than kudos.
Many, many Mt. Lebanon residents complained to the Lebo Commissioners about the assessment fiasco. Residents also complained to the county, but the Lebo Commissioners were the group that appealed the new resident's homes. (Also, many other towns did not appeal their new homeowners and USC absolutely did NOT appeal as many new residents as Mt. Lebanon and they did not take in a HUGE windfall. Call the USC tax office to check.) After this occurred for a few years and when the county froze all homes at the 2002 level, the Lebo Commissioners tried to fix the huge problem they created. ALL the Mt. Lebanon Commissioners voted to not challenge any of the new resident's appeals in 2006 and have not appealed any new homes since 2005. (So it really is a select group of people that got screwed.) The problem occurred because of the poor communication between the Mt. Lebanon School Board and the Commissioners. A School District employee failed to keep the board informed of the Commissioners actions and that is why many new homeowners had their appeals unchallenged. When refunds started being issued, the School Board voted to then challenge all the remaining appeals. I listened to the meeting on t.v. and a few of the School Board members did not even understand how assessment works in Lebo. (Ex: Lebo doesn't reassess new construction or additions, they just pass on those stats to the county.) The School Board had not dealt with residential property appeals for over 20 years; they only handled the commercial property and let the municipality handle the residential. Then the School Board voted on an issue that some did not fully understand.
The most concerning event to me is not that the new homeowners are paying an unfair shair, it is that the two governing bodies in Mt. Lebanon have an extremly poor history of communication. If the School Board had wanted to challenge the appeals of the new homeowners, then they should have challenged EVERYBODY, not just the last scheduled. (This is especially true because one of the School Board members was a lucky new homeowner. That person did nothing wrong; they just benefited from great timing!)
I have no problem paying my fair share of taxes if everybody will eventually be doing this also. But..... does anyone know the date of the next countywide assessment. How many hope it is January 2008? Probably not many Mt. Lebanon residents if you are underassessed!
The base year system means there will no longer be new assessments every few years. Everybody should be based on the value of the new house in 2002 (a tough thing to determine), and millage is adjusted/increased based on that.
In the spirit of community service and information sharing... :)
How to evaluate your tax situation:
Click here.
Type in your address. Check out the 2006 Market Value. Check out the comparable properties. Laugh and/or cry as appropriate.
On the MtL $70M vs USC $53M thing: I was surprised myself. But then I found out we have 165% of their population, and our HS enrollment is 130% of theirs.
So, the 132% larger school budget we pay into is actually the same number of dollars per HS student, and works out to only 80% of the dollars per resident that their budget demands.
(Check my math: 70M / 33K ~= .8 * 53M / 20K)
Man, that's got to steam 'em. :)
Mt Lebo - doing more with less(*)
(*) less meaning more, but cost averaged by taxpayer, it's less, or something. certain restrictions may apply. see board for details. your millage may vary.
What is the name of the judge that screwed this up in the first place? Will you vote for his retention?
Judge Stanton Wettick still has not ruled on the constitutionality of the 2002 base year plan. I personally hope he finds it unconstitutional and then all of Allegheny County will be reassessed. Those that have paid to little will then eventually catch up to all the new homeowners.
All residents can find their 2002 comparable on the first row of the comparable link on the county website. Some new homeowners are paying double the amount of their comparables. Yes, this is a county problem, but Mt. Lebanon made the problem worse by appealing the new residents a few years ago. My advice to Lebo residents: Put on a huge addition instead of buying a new home.
Will anyone buy my over assessed home now? Probably not when you can buy an expensive home here and pay less taxes than I do. I am hoping to find a homeowner from out of town who was as dumb as I was.
"Anonymous for a reason!"
Interesting you think he should judge it unconstitutional. Every county in Pennsylvania has a base year system, but when Allegheny County does it, suddenly it is unconstitutional.
Dan Onarato said that when they did the reassessment in 2005 taxes would have gone up on average 25%. Is that really what you want? Keep in mind that is on average, and Mt. Lebanon's housing went up more than average since 2002....
So if paying $8500 per year for a house worth $200K in 2007 is OK with you, then I hope you don't get your wish. It will be the end of Mt Lebanon's long history of prosperity and good schools.
The only reason I think Wettick should declare it unconstitutional is because I am grossly over assessed. I moved here 5 years ago from out of town and bought a house in the high 200's. I immediately had my house appealed by Mt. Lebanon and lost and now am assessed at my purchase price. I literally have an identical house to mine on my street that is assessed for $150,000 and I am assessed for nearly $300,000. I literally pay twice as much as my neighbor for the same house. My taxes are around $5,000 MORE each year. After paying these extra taxes for the past 5 years that comes to an EXTRA $20,000+. I am not wealthy enough to spend that $ for the privilege of living in Mt. Lebanon. I have tried to sell my house and have had no takers. I think my high taxes are the reason. The Mt. Lebo School Board challenged my 2006 appeal and I lost. All I want is to be back at my 2002 assessed value like everybody else on my street. I don't have any other option than to sell my house and move. I just hope someone will buy it. I am now willing to take less $ than I paid for my house 5 years ago. Mt. Lebanon sure did not welcome me with open arms. Unless you have lived here for 5 or more years, you would not be in favor of a base year. I wouldn't mind one more assessment to get all of Allegheny County on the same page and then freeze it at a base year. As it is, if I stay in my current home, I will always be paying more than the same house next door. Don't get me started on the huge house down the street with the addition that Mt. Lebo didn't appeal and that the county only reassessed for $50,000 more. Their addition cost over $200,000 and they saw their taxes go up maybe $2,500. I also pay more in taxes than they do and their house would sell easily for over $500,000. Am I bitter, yes. But if you have paid an extra $20,000 + over the past 5 years for the privilege of living in Mt. Lebanon, you would be bitter to.
"Anonymous for a reason"
Anon for a reason...sounds like you got screwed.
What is the fair system? Is there one? Maybe we can come up with something. Here is my thought...
You get reassessed when you buy a house. Otherwise, you stay at your base year. This way, the only time your taxes go up is when you buy a house. Would you potentially be paying MORE in taxes than your neighbor when you just bought a house and he has lived in his for 20 years? Yes! But you would know this before you bought that house and you wouldn't be shocked.
Two things this accomplishes. First, the seniors who bought their house would never see a property tax increase and therefore would not be taxed out of the community. Second, revenues would remain nearly the same to the school district since they would be getting the higher assessments on the houses that are more recently purchased.
In this scenario, even if home prices drop, revenues to the district could still go UP since the house will be getting taxed on the sale price.
Any kind of system where homes are consistently reassessed poses the threat of taxing those on fixed incomes out of the community.
Anyone have a better solution?
I can't think of a worse one. You've just described the system that California implemented in 1978, which (among other negative effects) destroyed what had been a fine public school system.
Every other system I have seen ends up kicking the older folks into retirement homes because of the increasing taxes. Should we be alright with this as a community? That's not a sarcastic question. I am just really wondering how to make it work.
California's education system does stink. But my understanding is that it is not locally run like we are here in PA. I think that all local revenues go to the state first and then the state hands back out whatever they see fit. Plus they have the immigration issue where no matter how many smart kids are in school, all the kids in ESL have to take the same standardized tests and bring down the scores.
Back to the point...is there a system that allows seniors to keep their homes (which I feel is important) but also is fair? Or is the only fair system to reassess everyone every five to ten years?
As to CA:
California's system does collect and distribute tax monies via the state capital rather than locally, but the payouts aren't discretionary. State law mandates the same per-child payout statewide. But centralization, immigration, and ESL are side issues; California was headed into the crapper post-Prop. 13 long before immigration and ESL students started sucking up major resources. The only thing that centralization did was keep rich districts from continuing to enrich themselves -- at the expense of poor districts.
As to letting seniors keep their homes:
It sounds heartless, maybe, but that's not a high priority for me, if the result is that families with earned income (cash rich, house poor) end up subsidizing those without it (house rich, cash poor). Subsidizing seniors w/r/t public transportation and movie tickets and Medicare and Social Security is one thing; either the burden of the redistribution is spread so widely that individual taxpayers don't feel it much, or the redistribution is cushioned (or should be) by an insurance program, so that the market bears the burden, or both. But if the tax system is set up to ask me to pay high taxes so that homeowning seniors in the same town can pay little or none, then I'll object. Remember -- and soon I'll make this the subject of a longer post on the main part of the blog -- by national standards, both Mt. Lebanon in particular and Pittsburgh in general are incredibly inexpensive places to live.
Can there be a program where seniors with a proven "inability to pay" can apply to have 50% of property their taxes “loaned” up to say 33% of the equity in their house (with interest at the taxing bodies’ cost of money + something for administrative fees)? Essentially a Community loan program where the Community holds the paper until the house is sold.
Not tax forgiveness and no threat of a Sherriff sale forcing folks from their home. This could help folks for up to 20 Years.
Only available to qualified seniors being age (62?) with (15?) years in the living in the same MTL house. (Can't have folks moving in just for this program) Maybe not a good idea - but I would support a program for assisting folks based on true need.
If the county or state wanted to switch to a market-value system, a way to do so that would be relatively fair and would (I think) minimize hassles from the voters would be to require that the municipalities and school districts reduce their millage so that the initial reappraisals are revenue-neutral. Then if they wanted to raise revenue, they'd have to do it the old-fashioned way, by raising the millage and taking their chances with the voters. (Commissioners and school board members unwilling to go along with such a plan should automatically draw scrutiny from voters regarding their motives.) Of course there would be individual variation in the tax changes for homeowners, depending, but those changes would sum to zero, so there should be little political grief, overall.
However...
Regarding Mike's comment about inequity between seniors, I would answer that the whole notion of taxing people based on the value of the property they own is bizarre, for many reasons:
1) It puts the legal determination of "market value" in the hands of a county bureaucrat who may or may not have a clue. In Austin, just before we moved, Travis county's assessed market value for our home was 30% higher than the value that our buyer's appraiser came up with. The whole notion of appraising the market value of a home without an actual sale is sketchy and fraught with problems.
2) It bases tax increases on the (presumed) value of a non-liquid asset that can't be liquidated piecemeal, requiring that the owner have some income and presuming that the amount of that income is correlated with the home value. That presumption is true near the time of purchase, when mortgage payments are generally correlated with income, but the correlation goes away with time. This throws into jeopardy the whole notion that once you pay off your home you can retire there on a fixed/limited income.
3) It taxes non-homestead property owners more than homestead property owners for no good reason that I can see except that non-homestead owners are less likely to be able to vote in the district doing the taxing. It reminds me a lot of small towns on the interstate that speed trap out-of-staters as a means of raising revenue.
4) It turns property ownership into a privilege for those who continue to contribute to society by bringing in income (to pay their taxes). Instead of owning your property, you really rent it from the municipality and school board. (as well as, if you live in Texas, the state and county, plus possibly the community college, public transportation authority, local hospital district, and/or whatever other bizarre property-taxing entities happen to cover your particular piece of property.)
Of course, I'm not sure what the alternative is. In Austin, I rather liked not paying any state or local income tax, even after I owned real estate.
I am curious to know the answer to this. The school budget increased to over $70 million this year. I believe that was an increase of at least a couple million. But the School Board did not raise taxes to cover the increase? Where was this money hiding that we shoved into this year's budget? I don't think half of our teachers retired this year, did they? There was a number associated with attrition at the school board meeting but it was nowhere near this.
Help me out here.
*CitizenA*
I said I wouldn't post here any more but, I have a suggestion on the property tax issue and want to see if anyone finds it feasable.
Number one, I don't understand why the current tax system seems to based on whether you live in an $80M home or a $500M home. At either end the owners enjoy the same benefits of the school district.
Here's my suggestion...
why not base school taxes on lot size! If you own 1/4 acre you pay-- say $2,000, own a half acre-- $4,000. That way everything is fixed. If you want to make your home a Taj Mahal, that's your business. Nicer homes only add to the overall beauty of the area.
Your taxes are based solely on your percentage of land you use. If the district needs more revenue, they ask to raise everybody but the same percentage... no more millions to look at every property to guesstimate the value of structures.
Business and multi-familly zoned property would be assessed at a higher amount than single home residential property since it is income producing.
Interesting and insightful information, in both these comments. I moved to Mt Lebanon from out of state (Oregon) in 2004. Our house was immediately reassessed and our property taxes doubled. We are paying significantly more than neighbors who have similar sized houses and twice as much (and in one case, 8x much) as land. (Our 3/4 acre was assessed at a higher value than the 6 acres behind us or the 1.5 acres on either size!) The tax code clearly states "uniform" taxation, but clearly we are not being taxed uniformly. Our situation is frustrating and to the point where we are about ready to move on (out of PA). Anyone else in this situation, please contact me, I'd like to discuss with others in the same boat the situation and what is being, or can be done, about it. A good school district is the sign of a good solid community (one of the reasons we chose Mt. Lebo), but the inequality of the taxation is trying.
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