USC’s budget lowers school tax rate
Upper St. Clair School Board on May 28 adopted a $65,983,222 final 2013-14 budget, which lowers the tax rate by 16.7 percent as mandated by the Allegheny County Real Estate Tax Reassessment that took effect this year.
The real estate tax rate will be 21.413 mills, which is down from the 25.718 mill rate that property owners paid for 2012-13.
The proposed tax rate in the proposed final budget that had been adopted April 22 was 21.438 mills, but Frosina Cordisco, director of business and finance for the district, recommended the board lower the rate of the final budget slightly. She has said this millage reduction matches the millage rate reduction announced by Upper St. Clair Township earlier this year.
The township and school district are required by state law to lower their tax rates as a result of a county real estate reassessment that takes effect this year.
School districts are prohibited from gaining a so-called windfall in revenues solely as a result of increased property values, whereas municipalities are permitted a five percent increase in revenues.
Cordisco told the board May 13 that there are still about $38 million worth of unresolved reassessment appeals in the township. The district must project what percentage of those appeals the district will receive in the end.
The district is not required by the state to adopt a budget until June 30, but district Superintendent Patrick O’Toole has said that passing a budget by the end of June as the board normally does makes it hard for the administration to arrange staffing given retirements and any potential staff cuts called for in the budget.
The final budget calls for replacing all 15 teachers who are retiring at the end of this school year.
A replacement for a 16th retiree – Boyce Middle School Principal Karen Brown – was named by the board on May 13 when Amy G. Pfender was promoted to the position from her current post as an assistant principal serving both Boyce and Fort Couch middle schools. Pfender will assume her new duties on July 1.
The school board last year entered into a two-year budget planning process where they got permission from the state to raise taxes higher than the rate of inflation for 2012-13 creating a surplus.
The board plans to use that surplus to avert any tax hike for 2013-14.
Cordisco is currently projecting a surplus for the 2012-13 budget of $1,773,075. If achieved, this will more than cover the $1,501,666 projected shortfall in the 2013-14 budget, leaving the district $271,409 in the black over the two-year period.
Cordisco said that cushion remains threatened by potential federal budget cuts, which the district is still waiting to hear about. She has said the district could receive as much as $400,000 less than budgeted from the federal government for the 2012-13 budget year.