posted by Mike Madison at 4:03 PM /
The title of the post reflects the course of action that the Mt. Lebanon School Board embarked on by passing its most recent budget. The "30%" increase in school taxes reflects what may come your way over the next five years. Of course, the tax increase may be much more than that. (Or it might be a mite less. Since last January, I've been arguing on this blog that the high school renovation alone would trigger a 20% tax increase.)
James Fraasch explains more at his blog.
Is everyone still happy with their not voting in last Tuesday's primary?
James Fraasch explains more at his blog.
Is everyone still happy with their not voting in last Tuesday's primary?
2 Comments:
James Gets It!However, this budget is far better than many that have come before. For that reason I like it. We may have finally turned the corner on under-estimating revenue and over-estimating expenses in our budgets.
I have not looked at the numbers for awhile, but my recollection is the last significant tax increase generated a significant budget surplus.
Just dumb luck? Don't think so.
Mr. Allison's budget is about $1,000,000 less than the actual spend in 07-08. Some of that is accounting differences, Nevertheless it is substantial progress.
Some folks could be blasted out of their homes by the annual tax bill in a few years, if we are not mindful of our actions. Others will steer clear of the Bubble, no matter how nice it looks from the outside.
WORTH NOTING: The Municipality is about to borrow $2,000,000 for stuff. Things that could have and should have been in the operating budget and paid from current revenues. I wonder if we are going to put it on the Wimpy Financing Plan*, like the School District and Municipality have done with several of the recent bond issues.
The last School District issue that "wrapped" the bonds included $10,000,000 in extra interest. I would argue, that $10,000,000 would be better spent on education or not at all.
Bond wrapping is basically a minimum payment scheme, that defers principal payments and maximizes interest payments in the near term.
*Wimpy: "I will gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today." Taxing bodies love this approach.
I would love to know what demographic group(s) did not vote on 5/19 in Lebo. Dave Franklin's comment to your Wednesday post on low turnout was perfect: look at your neighbors on either side of you and directly across the street....they might be representative of those (75%) who did not vote !
I appealed to the school board last year to limit the spending for the High School,etc., in particular consideration of the 76% of Lebo households without children in the district schools who are also on fixed or limited incomes. The president of the Washington Elementary PTA immediately followed me at the public podium and stated that I and others in the situation I referred to should sell our homes and move out of Lebo if we couldn't contend with tax hikes necessary to maintain our education excellance and attract young families with children.
With this in mind, here is how that suggestion might very well result in consequences that would significantly increase even more the likely tax increases you are referring to.
There are over 4,000 households in Lebo with folks over 65 years of age. If just 1,000 of those households decided they could no longer afford to remain in Lebo because of anticipated tax increases of all kinds, but primarily school taxes,and decide to leave Lebo and sell their homes to young couples each having one child who would enroll in MTLSD, it would increase MTLSD enrollment by 1,000 students. The current Lebo cost/student is $13,500 projected to increase to about $20,000 by 2014-2015 based on 100 + fewer students than now !
If we use only the current cost of $13,500 and factor it down to reflect both incremental costs & family earned income differences to a net $10,000 per new additional student for 1,000 students, the added cost would be $10,000,000 which today equates to 5 mills, or a 21% increase over current millage, just increased by 0.3 mills for 2009-2010. These 1,000 homes would likely generate no increase in RE taxes under the current base-year system, nor would they necessarily under a reassessment law with a revenue-neutral limitation overall.
So here is yet another possible consequence for the *big spenders* to contemplate as they demand more and more because "it's for the children".
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