Officials eyeing Line Lexington tax collector post

LANSDALE >> The North Penn School District is monitoring a unique situation involving a handful of district residents.

Director of Business Administration Steve Skrocki told the school board last week that it could need to take action soon to appoint a new tax collector for residents in the Line Lexington area of the district.

“This is a very intriguing, and constantly developing, story,” Skrocki said.

The village of Line Lexington is located in Hilltown and New

Britain townships in Bucks County, but about 80 total parcels fall within the boundaries of the North Penn School District, Skrocki told the board’s finance committee Oct. 29.

Since roughly the mid1960s, the 60 parcels in New Britain and 20 in Hilltown have not been covered by an elected tax collector, but rather by one appointed by the district, he said.

“For the past 20-some years, someone in my office has collected the real estate taxes for those parcels,” Skrocki said.

That designated business department employee is planning to retire at the end of January 2019, Skrocki told the board, so staff began looking into

what arrangements need to be made to continue tax collections — and that’s where the question grows complex.

“What I thought was simple in the beginning has now grown into a complicated story. I thought, quite simply, to appoint someone else in my office as the tax collector,” Skrocki said.

Skrocki consulted with district solicitor Kyle Somers on how to do so, he said, and while drafting a motion for that appointment, Somers suggested contacting both townships as a precaution.

When contacted, Skrocki said, New Britain’s staff said they were unsure whether the district or township would be able to appoint a tax collector for the parcels located there, and would need to do further legal research to find an answer.

“So, I don’t have a clear

recommendation for you at this point, beyond to let you know that we definitely have a vacancy effective Jan. 31, 2019,” Skrocki said.

“We definitely need to have somebody collect the taxes, but we’re not sure if it can be an appointee, or if somehow the two elected tax collectors — even though they’re not elected for Line Lexington — are allowed” to collect for there, he said.

In early 2017, the North Penn School Board passed a motion updating the compensation for all eight tax collectors who collect for municipalities in the district, and that motion set out a compensation of $650 annually for whomever does so for Line Lexington.

“By law, once every four years you’re permitted to amend the tax collector compensation, which we did about two years ago,”

Skrocki said.

“The other tax collectors are paid on a per-bill basis. For Line Lexington, it’s a flat $650,” he said.

Staff are still awaiting a formal response from Hilltown, and once both voice their positions to the district’s attorney, all three parties will discuss possible options, Skrocki told the board during their Oct. 29 finance committee meeting.

That portion of Line Lexington is almost entirely residential with no large commercial taxpayers, and “not even a township, it’s a village. There’s no board of supervisors, no council, or anything like that. It’s managed by Hilltown and New Britain,” Skrocki said.

Those 80 properties are the only ones in the district affected, Skrocki told the board, and since each fall under Bucks County’s tax rates and guidelines instead

of Montgomery County’s, shifting the responsibilities for tax collection elsewhere could cut down on work for North Penn’s finance department staff.

“We don’t have a resolution we’re recommending for the agenda now. We’ll save that until we get further legal guidance,” he said.

The North Penn School Board next meets in a special facilities forum at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 13, and the board’s finance committee next meets at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 26.