Question: if Mt. Lebanon school district is limited to a 3% tax increase under Act 1 then how is it that taxpayers woke up this morning to find that their school property tax bill is about to increase 10.7%?
Answer: there are so many exceptions built into Act 1 permitting school districts to ignore their "allowable" increase that the "so called" taxpayer protections have more holes than Swiss cheese.
Act 1 was supposed to change the school property tax system by allowing for tax relief from legalized slots and providing taxpayer protections by instituting a tax cap and allowing for voter referenda when the cap was exceeded. But the law also allowed districts the ability to secure exceptions for outstripping the cap without having to put the tax increase before the voters if the approved expenditures fell into one of ten categories, including school construction, health care benefits, special education expenditures, etc.
At the new rate of 26.69 mills Mt. Lebanon won’t have the highest school tax rate in the County, but it approaches the top of the list. But this increase is compounded by the events coming in the near term for the district: a countywide reassessment that will affect under valued homes and a growth in school spending that is currently forecast to increase property taxes (as witnessed by last night’s action) and earned income taxes. In short Mt. Lebanon homes could be facing significant tax hikes in the next four years.
