| Municipality | 2012 Millage | 2013 Millage | % Change Millage | % Change CAV | 2012 Certified Assessed Value | 2013 Certified Assessed Value |
| Mount Lebanon | 5.43 | TBD | TBD | 27% | $2,174,705,011 | $2,765,981,183 |
A resident wrote to the school board asking why not use the 2013 Certified Assessed Value of $2,765,981,183.
For the Board, Elaine Cappucci sent this response.
The District has not yet begun using the County's 2013 assessments because the total valuation amount is still changing, as stated clearly on the website you linked to: "While the Controller’s Office understands that the 2013 Certified Assessed Value totals will be impacted by the results of pending appeals and other factors, in the interest of transparency we are providing at this time a comparison of millage rates and certified assessed values for each municipality and political sub-division in Allegheny County."
The information on the County website includes appeals and settlements to date, yet within Mt. Lebanon there are still many appeals outstanding and yet to be filed and most commercial appeals have not yet been heard. The county assessment number will likely change and so the District is waiting to set the assessment value, which will allow us at that time to use the most accurate valuation that reflects the appeals. For the Board,
Elaine CappucciPresident, Mt. Lebanon School Boardecappucci@mtlsd.net
I am concerned with this logic since the County website admits that the process could take a year or longer.
The information below is for education and informational purposes only based on data available through the Allegheny County Office of Property Assessment as of December 13, 2012. All of the values remain approximations because the final Certified Assessed Value cannot be determined until all assessment appeals are finally determined and adjudicated, which may take one year or longer.With the budget meeting coming up on April 2, the school district website shows that a proposed budget will be approved 13 days later.
"A proposed budget is expected to be approved by the Board at the April 15 meeting with approval of a final budget on May 20, 2013."
30 comments:
The last time we had a reassessment the District didn't adjust the millage rate until the following year. You have to wonder if the finance office is trying to pull the same movie on new board members.
It is time to use the new mills to show our tax old rate before the public begins to think they are being taken for another phony tax hike - to be adjusted next year if the public can figure it out.
Getting caught in a phony tax rate this year could impact our revenue generating efforts and we have already authorized paying the fee.
It is time to come clean with the new-mills figure, Mrs. Cappucci. If you can't figure it out you should postpone your budget passage until late June.
But we have to come to the meeting and state our name and address for the board to listen. Anonymous doesn't count, according to Mary Birks. That is a bullying tactic, if I ever heard one.
Elaine
A few observations:
Recall that the original notice of 2013 reassessed value for Lebo was 29.7% over that of 2012 - now it is 27% after appeals. The 2.7% difference amounts to a large $ figure reduction, like some $59 million, or about $1.6 million in school taxes less.
The County figures in this post are only as of 12/31/2012 - it's now 3 months later. What are they now ?
The District apparently cannot amend or reopen the budget once finally approved on May 20. So they will likely hold off until then to set the final millage in the 2-step dance based on the County number as of about that date.
You can bet your last $ that they will establish a final millage using every trick in their (Jan's) toolkit - extract every penny they can lift from our pockets so they will not have to dip into unassigned fund balance money if real estate taxes collected don't come up to budget balancing requirements.
For instance, will the collection rate on real estate taxes in the final budget be at the traditional 97%, or will it be set quietly at only 96% ? A 1% difference amounts to about $600,000. If set at 96% and actual collections are at 97%, the district has a "windfall" gift of about $600,000 in added taxes they will pocket and never return. And we will be never the wiser because most of us will not take the time to figure it out.
For the record, I submitted budget recommendations, asked a few questions, and made some general comments concerning public education to the Board via E-mail based on an earlier exchange of messages with Mrs. Cappucci who told me that resident input concerning the budget process would be accepted in that manner. After submitting my rather lengthy letter I received the following from Mrs. Cappucci:
"Thank you for your email and your comments regarding the District's budget. As your email is intended as public comment regarding our budget discussions, each Board member will consider your recommended reductions and bring forward any of them which they feel have merit for further discussion at the planned budget meeting on April 2nd."
In all fairness I must take Mr. Cappucci at her word, with the caveat being that just because the entire Board got my comments does not mean anything will come of them.
Still, I would recommend that people who find it impossible to attend the Board meeting on 2 April 2013 E-mail their detailed comments to the Board. Be specific about what you propose and why, and sign your name and address at the end of the message - just as you would state your name and address if you were at the meeting in person.
Is it a waste of time? Maybe; but at least the District cannot say they did not get input from the public, as an RTK request for messages pertaining to the budget would easily attest.
Yes, that is another way to go, RG, but in my opinion, it is still a bullying tactic when you must state your name and address for any feedback to be considered. What if a parent of school age children has a cost saving idea that would somehow impact children? That parent would be labeled and the child could get fallout from that suggestion. Isn't it enough for the board to read the comments here, for instance, and say "hey, that makes sense!" and take the suggestion at face value?
Elaine
"Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author."
Has Elaine been threatened?
EG:
Yes, I would agree that a good idea is a good idea, and whether it is a signed idea is neither here nor there. I also know, as you do, that the Board reads this Blog - at least some Directors do. So your point is well taken. Unfortunately the Board isn't going to seek out public opinion on its own.
As to parents being concerned about possible repercussions against their children; this is also a point well taken. But I reason that since only 16% of the total population of Mt. Lebanon consists of children in District schools that leaves a lot of unaffected people who could make their feelings known - as well they should! The District, Municipality, County, Commonwealth, and the Feds are all cooking up new ways to part a citizen with his or her buck, and complacency is unacceptable.
There has been no definitive preliminary budget information shared with the public - except for the "fake" budget submission to PDE in January - as was the normal course years ago. Nothing that I am aware of. No handouts, no details except for Steinhauer's 14 page power point a couple of weeks ago that raised more questions than it supposedly answered. No audit and finance committee meetings.
I don't ask for much. This blog and website has turned into a full time job for me, and I am not complaining. But I wish readers would take the time to email the school board, as Richard Gideon has suggested, or attend the April 2 meeting and speak. There is no legitimate reason for Jan Klein and the board to submit a fake budget. It is almost April! There should be a real budget posted online prior to the budget meeting. The ENTIRE cost reduction list from last year should be posted online. The board needs to explain why 20 administrators received last year. Why did Jan Klein get a 6.9% raise last year? Why does Timmy continually get healthy increases? Why are we ignored when we ask why USC teachers take pay cuts and why their super and finance director accept pay freezes? Why do we no longer receive forecasts? Why has our total budget skyrocketed?
This whole thing stinks!! Please take a few minutes and email the board.
Elaine
Mary Birks is definitely a bully does anybody remember the comments she made to Mark Hart during School Board meetings?? She was so sophomoric that i could never vote for her...
8:16 AM, thank you for suggesting to postpone the budget passing until late June. The board does have until June 30, 2013 to approve the budget.
"The deadline for school districts, career and technology centers, charter schools, and special program jointures to adopt the 2013-2014 Final General Fund Budget is June 30, 2013."
Budget Adoption Deadlines
Since the budget cannot be reopened, it behooves the board to wait. At least they will have a better idea by waiting another six weeks and could be in the ballpark. Also, by waiting until June 30, we will have more answers to the current unknowns, like how big of a raise Jan Klein, Timmy, and the teachers will get this year, in addition to the second bond issue, retirements and the grievance.
Elaine
Isn't it amazing how it's *expected* that district employees will get annual raises?
This is especially disturbing considering today's economic climate, when people are losing jobs or working more than one job to make ends meet.
Most of the teachers work nine months of the year, with generous vacations during that period. Their pay is not based on how good they are at their jobs.
As for most of the current administrators, they are way overpaid.
Paying more for something doesn't make it better!
Once again reviewing history can teach you a lot. Like this gem from the Post Gazette:
"Some Mt. Lebanon residents ask for new high school
By Mary Niederberger / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A group of Mt. Lebanon residents last night asked the school board to consider building a completely new high school, a move that would require the community to approve a referendum on the matter.
Group members, who said their organization is called Build Our School Now, asked the board to vote for building a completely new high school rather than renovating the current structure and to put the issue to a referendum, which would be required under state law.
State formulas for debt limits hold Mt. Lebanon to spending no more than $110 million on the high school project without getting a referendum approved by the community. A new high school would cost about $150 million.
Build Our School Now representatives, including Kristin Linfante and David Brumfield, pledged to the board that they would knock on doors in the community lobbying people to approve the referendum."
Pretty interesting and costly lesson to be learned here. Especially when you compare the proceeding to a new post on the district web site.
"High School Renovations Take Shape
As you walk down the 6th floor hallway in the high school B Building, it's hard to imagine that sections of that space were built in 1928, 1931, and 1955 because it now looks brand new. The new windows fill the classrooms with light while each room is painted in either blue, yellow or terracotta making the rooms warm and inviting. Take a tour of the site by clicking this link to a Slide Show."
There are a lot of people that can hold their heads up high and proudly proclaim "we told you so!" They knew building B could be brought up to those "21st century education standards." this bloggers opinion is that we probably could've renovated the entire building, saved the existing tennis courts and retained building C, and probably not be looking at closing a school or eliminating librarians.
It would be wise to remember all the names that pushed for a $150 million high school, because it's a good bet they'll be pushing for more new expensive projects in the near future, like artificial turfed fields.
I think there may be only one way for taxpayers to exert some control over spending by the school board and the commissioners.
This blogger recommends studying up on the candidates, their supporters and their past records before voting! Don't pull a lever because you remember a name or saw a lot of yard signs.
It'll only takes a few minutes to vote and unlike blog comments your vote really does count.
Elaine makes sense, if there is no immediate deadline, why not wait for mote numbers to in on the budget! Tell the incumbents you want them to wait or they won't get your vote.
The anticipated final budget approval date of May 20 is ONE DAY before the primary election!
Retirement, staffing, student course selection, and the Governor's budget were all unknown when a north hills school district furloughed 20 teachers and 11 aids. The list of unknowns is just excuses for the Board to bump up the budget and take extra dollars from the taxpayers. The Board falls for that nonsense every time.
We hear the same song and dance in every budget discussion, how the previous year they cut 5% from department budgets, economists in every area and yet in 10 years of supporting frugal budgeting the district is preparing to raise the budget over last year by at least $1.8 million dollars.
Just what budgets have been cut? They didn't cut anything in the way of cost for the students. They're now paying $50 for parking that was once free. Plus if Mr. Lebowitz gets his way that could be paying $100.
In today's Trib its reported:
‘Hybrid learning’ ahead, says Pa. Department of Education Secretary Tomalis
By Bill Zlatos 412-320-7828
Staff Reporter
Published: Friday, March 29, 2013, 12:13 a.m.
Tomalis is optimistic about Gov. Tom Corbett's proposal to sell the state's wine and spirits stores and use the expected $1 billion in proceeds for four-year competitive grants to school districts. Districts could spend the money on one-time expenses in school safety; getting students to perform at grade level by third grade; individualized learning programs; and science, technology, engineering and math programs, he said.
So if there is possibly going to be $1 billion in new grants why couldn't the district spend a little more out of the reserve funds and replace them with the new grant money?
It might be wise to hold up until the deadline to see if this plays out.
The agenda for Tuesday's budget meeting has been posted. Residents will have four minutes to speak, not five minutes.
Budget Forum Agenda
Elaine
Do you remember when the parents showed up to complain about the elementary math program and various parents gave up their 5 minutes to various speakers? That was never permitted for residents or taxpayers who wanted to speak but the parents were granted special privilige.
By the way, does anyone know if Lebo Larry changed the Policy on the speaking time? Or is this just Pooch's way of telling folks to stick their opinion about the budget where she doesn't have to listen to it? Just like she treated the parents who complained about math class.
IMO, here is a perfect example of the lack of leadership, fiscal responsibilty and self-serving mentality in the school diustrict's administration.
In the budget discussion Mr. Lebowitz found no problem suggesting raising student parking fees from last year's $50 to $100.
I would've increase my respect for Dr. Sreinhauer if he responded to Mr. Lebowitz's suggestion with the following.
Mr. Lebowitz,we decided to charge students $50 to park after much deliberation. It wasn't something we wanted to do, it wasn't something I relish doing, but before I double the fee to the very people I care about (remember it's all for the kids) I will volunteer to pay $100 for my parking and ask my teachers/staff to do the same.
But what message does Dr. Steinhauer send, in response to a budget question from Mrs. Cappucci he states I'll operate with whatever budget the board sends me.
Now there is a guy in charge! Hahahahahahhaha!!!!!
Hey Mr. Brumfield, Mr. Franklin and the SAB-for that almost like zero .55 mill increase the school district is considering sucking out of Mt. Lebanon wallets you could turf and light a ballfield a year and when you were done be able to replace the first field laid when it wore out.
See once they get that .55 mills it's never going away, just look at the historical average over the last 10 years.
I sent this to the board yesterday and hope to get some answers.
School board directors,
For those of you who are not readers of my blog, Lebo Citizens, here is the latest post that pertains to the budget.
http://lebocitizens.blogspot.com/2013/03/property-tax-windfall-watch-2013.html?m=0
Some of the questions that I have are:
1. Why don't you wait until the end of June to pass the budget? You will have more answers by then.
2. How about considering the anonymous comments made on Lebo Citizens? Must you have a name to consider the points raised?
3. There is no legitimate reason for Jan Klein and the board to submit a fake budget. It is almost April! Why don't we have a preliminary budget since we have had budgets posted as early as February?
4. Why do we no longer see forecasts?
5. Why did you eliminate the audit and finance committee?
6. There should be a real budget posted online prior to the budget
meeting. The ENTIRE cost reduction list from last year should be posted online. How can we join in the conversation when we aren't given the facts?
7. Please explain why 20 administrators received raises last year.
8. Why did Jan Klein get a 6.9% raise last year?
9. Why does Tim Steinhauer continually get healthy increases when he says that we must do better with less?
10. Why are we ignored when we ask why USC teachers take pay cuts and why their super and finance director accept pay freezes?
11. Why has our total budget skyrocketed, while enrollment has declined?
12. What about the second bond for the high school renovation?
13. How do you plan to fund the grievance, should you lose?
14. When do you plan to set the assessment value for Mt. Lebanon?
Since we are only given five [I corrected myself in a later email and said four] minutes to speak, it would be helpful if you could answer these questions via email. I will share your responses on my blog. It would free up time for others to ask questions during
Tuesday's meeting.
Thank you.
Elaine Gillen
I imagine Elaine, you at most will get a brief nod that "we've received many emails etc., from the community (that'd be recognition of yours Elaine).
But then we hear the now stock answer, "I've met with and talked with XXXX (Kubit inferred 4,000 plus when he used this line) residents and they're OK with .55 mill increase budget plan.
Did the board change the policy on speaking time or are they ignoring their own rules like they ignore the parents and public?
This crap only happens when the board runs the superintendent instead of the superintendent running the board.
Happy Easter, Timmy!
As of yet, I have not received a response from any school board member. I realize this is a holiday weekend for some people. Happy Easter to those celebrating today.
If you want to send in some feedback to the school board, their email address is
schoolboard@mtlsd.net
Elaine
We'll soon see why Tom Moertel's Bloglebo analysis last fall of the reassessment was/is important.
"Assessment update: County’s own analysis shows a regressive bias in Mt. Lebanon
This article is part of a series examining how Mt. Lebanon is likely to be affected by the recent county-wide reassessment. For other articles in the series, see Blog-Lebo’s Reassessment Series. —Tom
Via Chris Briem’s blog, I learned that the county hired an independent team to review the recent assessment process. That team’s report is offered as Exhibit 4 of a recent court filing, part of the ongoing court case at the center of the controversy.
The findings of the independent review support Blog-Lebo’s conclusion from March that the new assessments for Mt. Lebanon are unfairly biased toward overtaxing owners of low-end properties and undertaxing owners of high-end properties. In particular, the report gives the independent reviewers’ estimate of the coefficient of price-related bias for Mt. Lebanon as about –7.5% (see page 19 of the report; look for the PRB-coefficient value for school district 26, Mt. Lebanon).
The PRB coefficient is a crude measure of bias, but it’s telling. What that –7.5% means is that, when you examine residences of increasing value in Mt. Lebanon, as their market value doubles, the corresponding assessed value tends to get a 7.5% discount. For example, if residences worth $150,000 tend to be assessed at a full 100 cents on the dollar with respect to market value, residences worth $300,000 will tend to be assessed at only 92.5 cents on the dollar, and residences worth $600,000 will tend to be assessed at only 85 cents on the dollar.
As a result of this “regressive” bias, owners of low-end properties effectively wind up paying some of the property taxes for high-end properties."
IMO... There is no way the school board will tackle under-assessed high-end properties. Probably for much the same reason as some directors will take the easier path of slapping more fees on students before asking the union or administration for some cuts.
Mr. Lebowitz thinks it's perfectly acceptable for instance to raise student parking fees to $100. But he won't even dare mention asking the staff to pay to park.
Who is more likely to have $100 in their pocket... a student or a $130,000+/yr administrator?
1:01 PM, the municipality has finally taken on the task of appealing at least 155 under-assessed single family properties, presumably high end. Some 400 properties in LEBO that were sold over the past two years were said to be significantly under-assessed for 2013; however a 2013 assessment appeal budget of $25,000 would permit funding appeals of only the top 155. This means the remainder, about 245, will go uncontested.
Bill Lewis
The district on the other hand is going to bet $200,000 on the hope that they'll win $5 million thru donations and giving.
If they used half that amount on underassed properties and won, they'd reap the gift that keeps on giving and at the same time reduce the tax rate for each and every taxpayer year after year.
Did anyone ask for the list of properties being appealed?
I didn't.
Elaine
8:50 PM hope you do and report back to us.
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