Taxes to rise 3.5% under $66.7M budget
PENNSBURG » School property tax bills will go up 3.48% under the $66.7 million budget adopted by an 8-1 vote of the Upper Perkiomen school board Thursday night.
School board member Raeann Hofkin cast the only vote against the budget adoption Thursday.
The bills will go up despite the fact that the budget does not increase the tax rate — or millage — from its current rate of 25.2278 mills.
And the bills will go up despite the fact that the school board agreed to pull $2.2 million from the budget reserves, called “fund balance,” to balance the budget and keep from raising the millage.
The reason, according to Business Administrator Sandra Kassel, is because of the method the district uses to equalize millage among the seven municipalities in two counties which comprise the district.
Upper Perkiomen uses something called the “State Tax Equalization Board Ratio” to create “a uniformed assessed value to market value throughout the school district,” according to an email response by Kassel to a query by MediaNews Group.
As a result, according to her budget presentation Monday, the median assessment in the Berks County portion of the district, for purposes of tax calculation, is $100,750.
The budget would raise annual taxes on a property with that assessment by $106.35.
The median assessment in the Montgomery County portion of the district, for purposes of tax calculation, is $129,120.
The budget would raise annual taxes on a property with that assessment by $136.29.
During her presentation, Kassel said in the last month, the district realized an additional one-time revenue infusion of more than $524,000 in federal and state grants designed to help cover costs of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the budget saw a $2.5 million increase in spending driven by nearly $650,000 in salary increases; more than $609,000 in debt service; nearly $750,000 in contracted services and more than $500,000 in tech supplies.