The Post Gazette has had a couple of articles about eliminating Act 1 exceptions through House Bill 1326 and Senate Bill 911. The School District was able to increase our taxes last year 10.5% because of the construction debt and pension obligations. If these bills go through, the School District is up the creek, from what I understand. Any tax increases above the PA Dept. of Education index, would require a referendum. Groups are saying the public needs to have greater control over school spending. The PA School Board Association isn't one of those groups. Groups fighting changes to school tax referendums
In today's lead letter to the editor in the PG, School boards must make the case to voters, a director from Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg, believes PA voters shouold have the final say on all school tax increases.
3 comments:
One can only hope....but in PA, reality is that the PSEA, PSBA, PTA and lobbyists for all manner of construction and bond issuing (ie. banks, financial advisors, bond counsels) interests will do everything in their collective powers to prevent Act 1 from being eliminated...after all, it's for the children !
If Act 1 is eliminated, no one will move here, housing values will plummet, there will be massive layoffs, banks will foreclose, our children will not be able to either afford or attend college and we'll all be out in the streets on *the dole*....Taj Mahals must be allowed to save us all ! It even sorta rhymes.
I'm sure the District is preparing a 4-page, 4-color, glossy FAQ mailer for us all to explain this in more detail....pay absolutely no attention to any misspellings.
Bill Lewis
Bill, you make me laugh. But many a truth is told in gest, I mean,
jest.
Elaine
I remember when the District released the private school enrollment numbers. Now we pay our Solicitor in *pieces of silver* to inhibit Right-to-Know requests.
Just think how bad our schools will be when the Super and Board can't ignore the public any more because they need a referendum passed! Gee, we might even need a Superintendent's Misinformation Task Force to tell parents how to vote on the referendums.
Oh well, we have a large segment of our parents who think majoring in football is more important than academics. The trouble is the football majors are too cheap and lazy to live up to their fund raising promises. Our Board sure could use those promised millions now folks.
John Ewing
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