Last night, the Tyrone Area School District passed its tentative 2005-06 budget which includes a three-mill tax increase.
\nThe budget must be advertised and will be considered for final adoption at the board\u2019s June 28 regular meeting. The board moved its work session and regular session to June 28 to allow for the advertising of the budget.
\nDuring a work session last night, the board also considered a 4-mill and 5-mill increase before settling on 3 mills. The 3-mill-increase applies to property owners in Blair County with taxes being increased 0.24 mills in Centre County and 1.76 mills in Huntingdon County because of adjustments required by tax equalization. A state-mandated formula is used in the Tyrone Area School District to equalize taxes since it is made up of residents from three counties.
\nThe district\u2019s preliminary budget shows based on the average assessed value of a residence, TASD property owners in Blair County will pay an additional $16.73 in taxes for the 05-06 fiscal year. In Centre County, the increase is $8.24 and in Huntingdon County, the boost in taxes will be $21.32.
\nSchool board member Ray Detwiler voted against the proposed tax increase. He was the lone no vote among the district\u2019s nine school board members. Detwiler was also one of two board members who voted to opt in to participation in the state\u2019s gambling-generated property tax reduction program. The overall vote was 7 to 2 against \u201copting in\u201d to the funding.
\n After the meeting he said, \u201cHow can you opt out of Act 72, to give the taxpayers a break, then turn around and kick them below the belt and tell them they are going to have to pay more with a property (tax) increase with that kind of a surplus, it\u2019s not right.\u201d
\nDetwiler was referring to a surplus in the district\u2019s general fund balance.
\nThe district\u2019s figures, noted in its preliminary budget, showed a fund balance for the district stood at just more than $2.5 million at the end of fiscal year 2004. The balance was listed to be at $1,393,438 as of June 30, 2005. The district transferred $1,000,000 from its general fund to its capital reserve fund. That move and a difference between estimated revenues and expenditures leaves the district with the $1,393,438 at the end of fiscal year 04-05.
\nThe preliminary budget shows proposed 05-06 revenues of $18,419,068 and proposed expenditures of $19,305,947. The budget shows a shortfall of $886,879. The budget projects an expected fund balance of $506,559 on June 30, 2006. The 05-06 shortfall would reduce the fund balance to that figure.
\nThe district has a $10-million reserve fund and is also working on a $10 million renovation and additions project at the middle school. Superintendent Dr. William N. Miller said the district hasn\u2019t decided yet whether or not it will use money from its capital reserve to pay off the project.
\n\u201cAs long as I\u2019ve been here we\u2019ve always had a capital reserve fund to protect the district for issues which come up,\u201d said Dr. Miller. \u201cWe can\u2019t each year eat into that fund balance because in time, three to five years where you don\u2019t increase taxes at all, you are going to have to increase taxes significantly to deal with that.\u201d
\nHe said if the district would use its reserves to payoff the building project the fund would be depleted.
\n\u201cIf you pay off this project, you don\u2019t have anything except what you are transferring in, this $1 million.\u201d
\nHe said the district, \u201cfrom a protection standpoint\u201d wanted to use \u201cin the long term…reasonable financing and responsible financing.\u201d
\nHe said the district had to \u201clook at the entire picture.\u201d
\nMiller noted the district would be dealing with teacher contracts and other issues in the future.
\nHe called the tax increase \u201creasonable\u201d and said the district had not raised taxes in seven years.
\nHe also noted that property owners in Centre and Huntingdon County had a higher millage rate in 2000-01 and 03-04 than they will have in 05-06 even with the proposed increase because of equalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night, the Tyrone Area School District passed its tentative 2005-06 budget which includes a three-mill tax increase. The budget must be advertised and will be considered for final adoption at the board\u2019s June 28 regular meeting. The board moved its work session and regular session to June 28 to allow for the advertising of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}