School board rejects tax cap

District keeps option open of raising taxes beyond state index

PINE FORGE >> With a 6-3 vote, the Boyertown Area School Board has rejected the idea of committing to a 2.8 percent property tax cap for the 20192020 school budget.

At a recent meeting held at Pine Forge Elementary School, the board instead opted to “preserve flexibility” in putting together the next year’s budget, as board Vice President Brandon Foose put it.

Boyertown will not follow in the footsteps in taking the action the Pottstown and Pottsgrove school boards recently undertook, adopting resolutions to keep the coming year’s tax hike within the state-imposed “Act 1 Index” for each respective district.

The index, calculated separately for each of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts every year, is the percentage by which a school board can raise taxes

without going to the voters for approval in the spring primary. It was put in place in 2006 with the adoption of Act 1.

Each district’s “index” is calculated via a complex formula taking into account inflation, local costs, the district’s local tax effort and level of poverty.

Boyertown’s index this year is 2.8 percent according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

However, those districts which choose to pursue a tax hike above the index, may do so without being subject to a voter referendum if they apply for “exceptions.”

Those “exceptions” have dwindled over the years and since 2011, only three remain — school construction debt; excessive special education costs; or increased pension costs.

At this point in the school year, school districts have two choices.

They can enact a resolution pledging to ensure the coming year’s tax hike is at or beneath the cap.

Or they can do what Boyertown did and engage in a preliminary budget process that preserves the ability to apply for those “exceptions” later in the budget process, which ends on June 30.

As is often the case in Boyertown when finances are involved, there was a robust discussion among board members about which course was best.

Voting against the majority and speaking out against the possibility of a higher tax increase were board members Clay Breece, Ruth Dierolf and Christine Neiman.

Breece said “this is how this was sold last year, with the idea that we ‘might’ do it and I see we’re ready to pull the same sham again on the public. I assure the community, there will be another 5 percent or 6 percent vote to double our tax increase all over again.”

Last May, the school board approved a $118 million final budget that raised property taxes by 5.4 percent.

Three months prior to that vote, the board, with both Breece and Dierolf voting in favor, adopted a preliminary budget in order to preserve the “exceptions” option. But both were joined by Neiman in voting against the final budget in May.

Board member Donna Usavage said it was better to keep options open than to make mistakes, like the 2009 budget that did not raise taxes at all, and which required several subsequent tax hikes “to dig back out of that hole.”

Two years ago the board voted to stay within the index “and we had to borrow from our savings to fill a big budget deficit,” said board member Jill Dennin.

“I don’t want to make that mistake again,” said Dennin. “This is not a sham, numbers are numbers and facts are facts.”

“We have to be careful not use hyperbole to politicize and strike fear into the minds of the people in our community about what things might look like in the future,” said Usavage.

“I think it’s sad to hear one member call this a sham and say we’re trying to hoodwink the public,” said board member Rodney Boyer. “I think it’s sad to say some of us have already made up our minds. I know I haven’t and I think we should cut back on the hyperbole a little bit.”

Usavage and Dennin both said it would be “fiscally irresponsible” to commit to staying within the index.

Usavage said the millage increase in the Boyertown district has been “linear, not exponential growth as one board member has said.”

Breece, the board member who has said that, responded that the district had seen a 47 percent increase in tax revenues since 2006 “and we may well see another $20 million in the next 10 years whether its exponential or linear.”

He added “I can assure you the community we serve aren’t seeing the same linear or exponential growth in their incomes.”

“We have to start being accountable to this community,” said Neiman, adding that “I’ve been on this board for five years now and it just seems like the majority is a rubber stamp for the administration.”

Superintendent Dana Bedden replied that the matters being voted on had been discussed at length in committee meetings

He added pointedly that he receives calls and emails with questions from board members on Sundays and hours before the meetings and always responds, but that there is “one board member I’ve called and never gotten a call back and emailed with no response.”

Neiman replied this she was not necessarily referring to Bedden. “I’ve been on this board for five years.”

“This is not an us against the board or administration” situation, Bedden said, adding “we can disagree without being disagreeable.” The rhetoric at meetings “is killing the public trust when I’m out in the community.”

Gilbertsville resident Lisa Hogan agreed, saying in the past two years since she moved to Boyertown from Philadelphia, she has attended or watched board meetings and “I’m pretty appalled. There is a lot of fear-mongering and attempts to spread misinformation to scare residents and taxpayers. It is inappropriate and unproductive.”

“If the board is not willing to behave in a respectful manner, the leadership should do something,” said Hogan, adding that meetings last hours and the public’s time is wasted by “rants on political theory and appeals to their emotions instead of their intellect.”

Breece — who has at times during prior board comments invoked Mao Tse Tung, talked about the role of religion and referred to public education as a “monopoly” — said board discussions “should always be polite and always be respectful. Exploring the ideological differences between us, and there are, doesn’t mean we’re being mean-spirited.”

“We need to deliver a good education within a limited budget, not an unlimited budget. That is responsible deliberation,” said Breece.

“Stop re-hashing the same arguments we’ve been having for 30 years now while the district is slowly deteriorating,” said resident John Emeigh. “Can you come up with some solutions? Just once?”

“Obviously, there is a lot of passion here,” said board President Steve Elsier. “But in the end, most things come down to funding.”