Fox Chapel Parents Group

Is one tax better than the other?

2007-03-26T05:14:00.000-07:00

When looking at the graphs, there is an obvious line of who will pay more.

But is one tax better for the schools than the other?

Absolutely! FCASD currently collects 99% of the district's Property Taxes. If we switch to Earned Income, the district would certainly be unable to collect that same percentage. Not only would the district incur an increased cost to administer the tax, it will be more difficult to collect. The district only expects to collect @70% of an EIT the first year. Furthermore, Earned Income Tax is less stable than Property Tax. While the houses in this district offer stable income, wage earners can move out of the district taking their money with them.

Is one tax better for our property values than the other?

Again, YES!! Right now, the ability to say your house is located in the FCASD, is a huge selling point. In other words, people want to move into our district because our schools have such a great reputation. If the EIT is imposed here and it is voted down in neighboring districts, there might just be an exodus of our higher wage earners to those districts. No one wants to pay more in taxes. Keeping high wage earners in the district and ensuring our district is a desirable place to live is instrumental in keeping our property values high.

who will pay what

2007-03-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

The following table shows how much households will spend/save after their property reduction, if the resolution passes

Household income 1^st year	Difference	Household Income 2^nd year	Difference
$300,000	$1578	$300,000	$1355
$285,000	$1473	$285,000	$1250
$270,000	$1368	$270,000	$1145
$255,000	$1263	$255,000	$1040
$240,000	$1158	$240,000	$935
$225,000	$1053	$225,000	$830
$210,000	$948	$210,000	$725
$195,000	$843	$195,000	$6200
$180,000	$738	$180,000	$515
$165,000	$633	$165,000	$410
$150,000	$528	$150,000	$305
$135,000	$423	$135,000	$200
$120,000	$318	$120,000	$95
$105,000	$213	$105,000	($10)
$90,000	$108	$90,000	($115)
$75,000	$3	$75,000	($220)
$60,000	($102)	$60,000	($325)
$45,000	($207)	$45,000	($430)
$30,000	($312)	$30,000	($535)
$15,000	($417)	$15,000	($640)
$0	($522)	$0	($745)

wording of the resolution

2007-03-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

The following question will appear on May's ballot:

Do you favor increasing the school district's portion of the current Earned Income Tax by imposing an additional 0.7%, effective July 1, 2007? The revenue generated from the increased tax rate will be used to reduce school district taxes on qualified residential property by an estimated $522 in the first year and increasing to approximately $745 in succeeding years. The current school district Earned Income Tax rate is 0.5%

When voting on this issue in May, it is important for taxpayers to realize the following:

In the first year, a household with a toal income of $75,000 will pay more in total taxes with the increased EIT than they did previsously. The district estimates that there are more than 4,200 households that fall into this category.
The district's 2,800 renters will pay the increased EIT, but receive no tax relief in return
Citizens on a fixed income making less than $75,000 should benefit from Act 1 the most in the first year of implementation. The district estimated there are more than 5,000 citizens who are 65 years of age or older.

Political Action Committee forming

2007-03-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

Volunteers from each of the district's 6 schools met and began talking about Act 1, the resolution that will be on May's ballot, and how best to get people to the polls to vote.

Our first course of action is a drive to get everyone registered to vote. The registration deadline is April 15th. If you are not registered or know someone that is not registered please go to http://www.dos.state.pa.us/voting/lib/voting/02_voter_registration_applications/onlinevoterregformblank.pdf
and print out this form and send it in before April 15th.

Here are some stats on FCASD's voting history
Number of registered voters - 21,532
Number of voters who voted in the last Primary Election - 4,908
Numver of voters who voted in the last General Election - 12,815
Numbers of perfect voters (last 4 elections) - 2,840
Number of perfect voters age 25 to 55 - 893
Number of perfect voters over 60 - 1,642

If we are going to defeat "The Taxpayer Relief Act" we need our wage earning population to get out and vote!!

Fox Chapel Parents Group

2006-11-29T17:30:00.000-08:00

Tax Study Committee Meeting

The committee met this evening and voted to make the following recommendation to the school board - putting the option to raise the EIT .7% on the ballot in spring.

While there was some discussion on PIT being more fair but certainly more volitile, the board did unanimously agree to submit the EIT. One member was clear in that if PIT was worked out by either the state or other districts before referendum, that he would like to consider following suit.

The board will present their recommendation to the school board at their next meeting Monday the 4th at 7:00pm in the LGI room. There will be copies of their formal recommendation for all attendees.

Fox Chapel Parents Group

2006-11-17T15:54:00.000-08:00

Act 1, “Taxpayer Relief Act” was enacted June of 2006. Designated as a property tax reduction, it is in fact a tax shift. Tax “help” from gaming money is not a factor for our district at this point, because the law states that a reserve fund of $400 million must be established before any money can be disseminated to the different districts in their qualifying amounts. This law changes district funding in a way that could negatively affect our public schools.

On the May ballot, we will be asked if we want to lower property taxes by either implementing a Personal Income Tax or increasing our Earned Income Tax. The public hearing will illustrate the differences in these two taxes and how each one will affect the taxpaying community. If the referendum fails, we will keep our current property tax structure.

To protect the future of our schools in this district, we need to ensure stability. Only by preserving the funding for our district can we maintain our property values. It’s important to recognize that elementary students will have the longest exposure to the effects of this law on our local education.

Things to consider at the meeting: how do we keep the bulk of our revenue in the most stable, most easily collected and most predictable form that will allow us to maintain revenue for our district? Who benefits from this tax and who does not?

Welcome New Visitors

2006-11-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

This blog has been created to exchange ideas among parents in the Fox Chapel School District who are concerned about issues surrounding Act 1 and the local tax study commission. For further information, please visit the links on the right side of the blog home page.

Anyone may comment on a post to this blog by clicking on the "comment" line at the bottom of each post. If you'd like to add a post, please send e-mail to urban.kz@gmail.com to be added to the list of contributors. Don't forget to "refresh" your screen when visiting the blog in the future to be sure you can see all of the updates.

Please tell other interested parties to visit this blog at www.fcparents.blogspot.com. Thanks!

(If you got to this information by clicking the "New Visitors" link, to exit this link, click here to return to the blog home page.)

act 1 timeline

2006-11-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

I just found this. http://www.pde.state.pa.us/proptax/lib/proptax/Timeline_2006-07.pdf

it goes over every deadline that the school board needs to meet under the Act.

Catherine Nelson will be accessible to this group re Act 1

2006-11-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Kristy Rogers for noting that Catherine Nelson, local Tax Study Commision member, is an O'Hara mom. Catherine was glad to hear of our interest and is kindly offering to help answer any questions we come up with in advance of the public hearing Nov. 20.
She noted that there will be no further TSC meetings before the hearing, but can help clarify issues and facilitate communication with the committee.
She will be joining this blog, and ,while not available to come to the Saturday meeting, will address the questions we generate (we can email her that afternoon and publish the responses here).

We will be trying to share this site with other district families, hopefully through their PTO's, in the coming days. We hope to spread the word widely within the O'Hara community, too. Dr. Stephens is campaigning among the schools to encourage involvement and awareness of Act 1 and the unavoidable changes in local funding sources for all the schools in the Fox Chapel district.

PLEASE DO NOTE THAT THIS SITE IS NOW EXCLUSIVELY DEVOTED TO ACT 1 ISSUES AND HENCE IS DISTRICT-WIDE. PLEASE DO SHARE! pw

Post from Dave Esch

2006-11-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

Dave Esch left this comment yesterday but I wasn't sure if anyone had seen it. -- KZU

Just a quick word of thanks to Penny and Kristen for setting this up!

I've had a look at some of the links, and it seems the timetable for our responses/input to the Tax group is quite tight. I'm just getting up to speed on the issues (thanks again to Penny), but it struck me that our input at the meeting on the 20th could possibly take the form of a letter, signed by the participants here. Perhaps someone who feels they have a solid grip on the issues could set those out in a draft, which could stimulate discussion/comment.

Any takers?

Dave

Members of the FC Tax Study Commission

2006-11-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

Here's the list of district residents who were appointed by the school board to the Tax Study Commission: Lee Bellmer, Richard Meyer, Catherine Nelson, Arthur Scully, and Joel Weinstein.

nov 6 meeting

2006-11-07T10:50:00.000-08:00

The handful of parents on Nov. 6 spent the majority of time discussing aspects of Act 1, though we also agreed to focus on O'Hara's immediate material needs (lighting, expanded restrooms and handwashing stations) and try to better define the personnel/staff discrepancies that may exist relative to the large population of O'Hara (ie, noontime monitors, special education, English as a Second Language), which requires that more information be gathered.

Watch this site for further links to useful Act 1 sites, which will also be emailed to parents on the list (duplicating this site) until everyone has access to the site and is comfortable using it.

We also decided to approach the Herald to make sure they are publicizing the public meeting on Nov. 20, and to perhaps have pertinent information about the law and tax review included.

We will be asking the District Forum tomorrow (Wed) specifically how the public may interact further with the tax study commission and the board AFTER the public hearing and before the final recommendation is made by the commission to the board in early December. Also, we would like the administration to clarify how the board and commission will be publicizing the process and recommendation. (It is clear that some Pa. commissions have publicized their meetings and opened their deliberations to the public, but I am not clear how this is being done here.)

If you have any other questions we need to ask tomorrow, let us know--I'll check my email jsut before leaving for any messages. Or, call me on cell 412-913-4859 up till 9 a.m.

The meeting on Saturday will be at our house, 309 Timber Court, at 1 pm; hopefully will be around an hour. PW

Meeting notice

2006-11-04T08:57:00.000-08:00

There will be a meeting Monday Nov 6 at O'Hara, in the
cafeteria/commons area at or before 9 am (following
dropoff....). I'll bring coffee and the list of
preliminary concerns, as well as a few more copies of
the Act 1 handout from the superintendent, and we'll
go from there. Kristy and I will be going to District
Forum on the 8th, and hope more of you can make it to
get a bigger picture of who's who in the district and
perhaps meet some of the parents from the other
schools.

There will be a second meeting for the parents who
can't easily make it during the week on Sat Nov 11,
probably at 12:30 and probably at our house (about a 3
minute drive from school) and with a sitter who can
supervise any kids you'd like to bring and play with
our kids (3rd and K) in the basement. If it's critical
for you to meet at 12:30 vs 1 pm or vice versa,
please let me know--I only have 4 or 5 names for the
weekend meeting and want it to be as convenient as
possible. Hopefully, the next time we meet on a
weekend, it will be on the early or late part of the
day so as not to interfere with family outings.

After each of these meetings, we'll post notes for
those of you who can't make it.

On the right side of this blog are the sites with information (and
spin!) on Act 1. Please try to get to the Nov. 20
public hearing with the local tax study commission, as
it is the only public meeting required before
recommendations are made to the FC board on tax
policies that will greatly affect us and our kids
throughout the district. If you find other sites,
please post them to Kristy or me so we can post them here.

Penny Williams

Introduction

2006-11-04T08:28:00.000-08:00

This blog has been created to exchange ideas among parents in the Fox Chapel School District who are concerned about issues of space, specifically at O'Hara Elementary, and issues surrounding Act 1 and the local tax study commission.