Last week we wrote that there was some talk that if the budget was to produce a significant school property tax shift then there would have to be a mechanism to ensure that districts could not easily raise property taxes to eat away at what would have been promised tax relief under a shift.
With what has been discussed regarding the budget as of late, it appears there will be no tax shift and thus no changes to the Act 1 index budget process and its requirements for school tax increases.
Districts have an index for the 2016-17 school year (the current no-budget fiscal year ends June 30th of 2016) and the Greater Latrobe district has said that it won’t go above its Act 1 index while the Penn Hills school district has said it will seek an exception to raise taxes above its index.
Interestingly if the proposed changes to require any school tax increase to be put on the ballot before the voters would have become law then both of these possible increases would have been subject to an up or down vote of the electorate.
