Board caps next tax hike at 3.2 percent

LOWER POTTSGROVE » No matter how things shake out next spring, the 2018-19 budget adopted by the Pottsgrove School Board will not exceed a tax hike of 3.2 percent.

That’s the result of a resolution unanimously adopted Nov. 14 by the school board.

Under Act 1, the Pennsylvania Department of Education imposes an “index,” which is effectively a tax cap, calculated individually for each of the state’s 500 school districts.

School boards which adopt a resolution not to exceed their district’s cap, and not seek “excep-

tions” to raise taxes above that cap, are relieved of the early budget adoption requirements designed to allow a tax hike to be put on the ballot for a public vote in the May primary elections.

Failing to adopt this resolution would have forced the board to begin budget deliberations as early as February.

“This is a no-brainer and makes the budget process a lot easier,” said school board member Rick Rabinowitz.

Business Manager David Nester agreed, saying the district now has until May to come up with a proposed budget that it must adopt by the end of June.

The adoption of this resolution does not mean the next budget’s tax hike will be 3.2 percent, or even that there will be a tax hike at all.

It only means any tax hike will not exceed 3.2 percent.

Discussions on that budget will be colored, among other things, by the existence of a $1.2 million surplus which was revealed to the public last month.

With the exception of replacing $375,000 in the PSERS retirement savings account — which this year’s budget had withdrawn but was not needed — the school board elected to put off decisions about what to do with that money until the newly elected school board is seated next month.

That predicament, if you want to call it that, was preceded by the announcement of an even bigger surplus — $2.3 million — in 2016.