City school board approves 2020 budget
A small property tax increase will be assessed
Pittsburgh taxpayers will see a property tax increase in 2020, although it won’t be as much as the city school district had initially proposed.
The Pittsburgh Public Schools board, by a 6-3 vote Friday, approved a property tax hike of about 1.2%, rising to 9.95 mills from the current 9.84 mills next year. The increase represents an additional $12 on every $100,000 of a home’s assessed value.
District administrators said they would not have to cut programs or jobs, as some had feared if a tax increase wasn’t approved. But the increase, which was less than the 2.3% the district initially had proposed, will force the district to take money from its fund balance, essentially a rainy day fund.
It also does not address longterm issues that the district is facing as costs for health care, teacher salaries and charter schools continue to increase. Those costs will need to be addressed in the years to come.
“Going forward, we do have to look at our expenditures and reevaluate all of our programs,” said the district’s chief financial officer, Ronald Joseph. “As many board members said, [we must] try to identify places where we can reduce expenditures because it
ditures because it doesn’t solve the problem in the long term.”
The board last week adopted a $665.6 million budget but then failed to fund it after members voted down the proposed 2.3% tax increase that came with it. That proposal that would have raised taxes to 10.07 mills, or $23 on every $100,000 of assessed value.
Even though a more modest tax increase was approved, the district will face a shortfall that will force it to take more than $20 million from its fund balance, according to Mr. Joseph. In addition, about $810,000 was cut from the budget.
The district saw the tax increase as a step in alleviating its operating deficit, projected to be $27.3 million in 2020. That is a decrease of more than $5 million from the $32.4 million operating deficit in 2019. It was not immediately known how the 1.2% tax increase will impact the deficit.
“We are still pulling from our fund balance, so we haven’t solved that problem of having a structural deficit,”
Mr. Joseph said. “We’ve solved the problem of addressing our fund balance compliance policy, but next year we’re still going to be back in the same position.”
The board approved the tax increase after almost two hours of discussion in which several members proposed different millage rates. Seeking a compromise, board member Sala Udin, who represents the District 3’s 11 neighborhoods from the Hill District to East Liberty, proposed the increase to 9.95 mills, which represents the halfway mark between the district’s original proposal and no increase.
It’s the first time in five years that the district has raised taxes, and even with the increase, the city has the lowest school millage rate in Allegheny County.
Mr. Udin was perhaps the harshest critic of the proposed 2.3% tax increase because he felt that the district had not guaranteed the increase in revenue would lead to improvement in student performance.
When Mr. Udin saw it was clear that the 1.2% tax increase was going to pass, he said, “Hallelujah,” before voting for approval.
Mr. Udin, along with District 8 member Kevin Carter (who represents nine North Side neighborhoods and portions of Downtown and Knoxville), District 5’s Terry Kennedy (a dozen neighborhoods from South Side to Oakland to Squirrel Hill), District 6’s Bill Gallagher (eight neighborhoods from Mount Washington to Overbrook), District 7’s Cynthia Falls (11 neighborhoods from South Side Flats to Carrick) and District 9’s Veronica Edwards (17 western and northern neighborhoods from Sheraden to Marshall Shadeland), voted for the increase.
District 1 representative Sylvia Wilson (11 neighborhoods from Homewood to Shadyside), District 2’s Devon Taliaferro (14 neighborhoods from the North Side to Lawrenceville) and District 4’s Pam Harbin (Squirrel Hill, Point Breeze, and portions of North Oakland and Shadyside) voted against it.
Ms. Wilson, Ms. Harbin and Ms. Taliaferro, who all voted for the 2.3% tax increase, voted against the more modest hike because they wanted more revenue for the district.
They were among board members who worried that without the additional funding, the district could be forced to close schools, cut programs and furlough teachers.
Although it appears that won’t be necessary, Ms. Harbin still expressed her frustration.
“I feel like we are letting people down,” she said. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Ms. Wilson said that was not as significant as some people made it out to be, and that she “didn’t think that we should have nickeling and diming what we need to do for our children.
“We have to understand that we are here for our children and families, and we want the families to trust and to understand that we are not wasting their dollars.”