Final Budget Raises Taxes 2.72 Mills or 2.52% — But Fund Balance Figure Is 5.18% of Expenditures (Board Policy Calls for 4%)

After a long meeting filled with discussion about how to use the Melsky money, whether to use some of that money to further reduce the budget and the tax hike, the Board passed the budget as it was presented by the Administration: projected expenditures of 199,278,168 including a $1,000,000 budgetary reserve; projected revenues of $194,071,499; [...]

Salaries and Benefits Make Up 72% of the Budget

Reading the recent Courier Times article about the budget at Council Rock, people may have gotten the impression there’s a lot of items that can be trimmed before looking at salaries and benefits.  The article stated that salaries and benefits comprise 55% of the budget.  That percentage is way understated. Next year’s proposed budget shows [...]

Budget Hike Still at 3.4 Mills — Could Immediately Be Down to 2.4 Mills with a Fund Balance Closer to the District’s Policy Target

The budget presented at the most recent School Board meeting (and what’s currently on the CRSD website) showed less of an increase than earlier versions due to lower expenditures, but still showed a millage increase of 3.40 mills.  On a home with an assessment of $35,600 (the median from 2006), that would equate to a [...]

Initial Look at 2010-11 Budget = 6.9% Increase in Property Taxes (Up 7.45 Mills to 115.41)

Thanks to Act 1 (not that there’s a ton for which to be thankful there), School Districts have to present preliminary budgets much earlier in the year than they had several years ago. This is a double-edged sword, since it requires Districts to make more projections when they don’t have a ton of data from [...]

Property Tax Assessment Appeals Results for Council Rock – Revenue Loss $1,267,831; Millage Needed to Offset Loss 1.08 Mill; District Appealing Few Cases, Focusing on Properties Where Loss was $3000-$4000 or More

At the Finance Committee meeting on December 16th, figures were presented showing the results of the large number of property tax appeals filed within the District this year. A chart showing the results is presented below. The tax revenue loss to the District at that point was $1,267,831 annually (with 16 cases still to be [...]

Act 1 Referendum Exceptions — When Tax Revenue Goes Down, the School Board Can Raise Taxes More (As Opposed to Cutting Expenses for the Lower Revenue) — Could Be Over 6% Next Year

What a wonderful (please insert sarcasm here) system created by the State Government with Act 1, which was billed as allowing taxpayers a vote when school districts wanted to raise taxes more than a prescribed percentage.  For example, this year the State set the percentage at 2.9%, giving taxpayers an expectation of a somewhat modest [...]

School District Makes Improvement to Board Meeting Agendas

The agenda posted for tonight’s School Board meeting is an improvement over the format from past agendas which have been on the District’s website. Past agendas showed numbered attachments to various agenda topics, and to check out any posted agendas, you had to exit out of the agenda and click on a separate link for [...]

When Are Enrollment Projections Valid and When Aren’t They?

At last night’s forum on possibly redistricting so that all Richboro Middle School students get sent to Council Rock South (as opposed to the current system of splitting them into the two high schools by geographic location), figures were presented about future enrollments.  The Administration was using these numbers to indicate how all the students [...]

Will Council Rock School District Attempt to Raise the Assessment (and Thus the Taxes) on Your Home?

The post from last night discussed the 840 reassessment requests that have been filed by property owners looking to have their assessments lowered.  I mentioned that in the process of attending the hearings and gathering data, Council Rock is gaining a lot of information not only on the properties on which these requests have been [...]

Council Rock Will Send Attorney to Reassessment Hearings — May Have Repercussions for People Who Haven’t Requested Reassessment Too

At last Wednesday’s Finance Committee meeting, there was a long discussion about the Assessment Appeals which have been filed this summer in the Council Rock area.  There were 840 requests for reassessment filed, of which about 20 were for commercial properties. The discussion involved the potential loss to the District in terms of tax revenue [...]