Since many of our elected officials read this site, on a regular basis, it is a very good communication tool to let them know just how we feel, without the insults that come from appearing before the Pickerington City Council.
No matter how we try to spin the issue the largest single tax emergency facing this community is the Pickerington Local School District's operating levy this November. Folks it won?’t go away. It won?’t go away for years. The building of new schools is only a minor part of the expenses. Once the buildings are completed we then must get into the operating expenses of those new schools. It will mean a whole new set of administrators and maintenance staff. It means more school bus drivers and so on. The school is telling us that they can only predict this operating levy in November for the next TWO YEARS.
In all of the rhetoric coming from all sides here we still face that basic problem of our REAL ESTATE tax base. We still have a declining real estate tax evaluation per student which puts us at a disadvantage when trying to fund money to ours schools.
At one time we had farm land all over this school district. That land is slowly being replaced with only homes. If those homes were in the $500,000 range then we just might keep abreast of the property valuation formula. The fact we all must face is that these homes coming into the City of Pickerington are basically starter homes in the $150,000 range. If these news homes were occupied by just seniors or even empty nesters then we might have a chance to keep up with property valuation per student; they aren?’t.
The property valuation could be helped with strong commercial growth. However; our city government has embarked on a policy path of giving TIF?’s to every one that brings a business into Pickerington. Unfortunately any NEW taxes that the school district might have enjoyed are being spent on building roads and other infrastructure to keep pace with the growing population of the area.
In addition to the growing problem with our roads and traffic control we find additional needs of sewer and water capacity. Here again the city embraces a policy of turning the water and sewer plants into profit centers and competes with the surrounding government entities for the customer market for these services, resulting in wasted tax dollars. They are currently in a legal battle to annex 672 acres from the township so they can expand the utilities markets they think will deliver them big bucks. To service these NEW areas the city will need to breech current agreements with Canal Winchester and the County and spend millions of dollars to expand these utilities plants that will place a tremendous debt load onto the city users of these systems.
It is my belief that to resolve the problems facing this community and this school district we must all sit down and forge an agreement within our school district to control residential growth, increase commercial growth, and develop an economic tax base that each year increases the property VALUATION PER STUDENT in our school system. This should be our tool to measure our success.
No matter how we try to spin the issue the largest single tax emergency facing this community is the Pickerington Local School District's operating levy this November. Folks it won?’t go away. It won?’t go away for years. The building of new schools is only a minor part of the expenses. Once the buildings are completed we then must get into the operating expenses of those new schools. It will mean a whole new set of administrators and maintenance staff. It means more school bus drivers and so on. The school is telling us that they can only predict this operating levy in November for the next TWO YEARS.
In all of the rhetoric coming from all sides here we still face that basic problem of our REAL ESTATE tax base. We still have a declining real estate tax evaluation per student which puts us at a disadvantage when trying to fund money to ours schools.
At one time we had farm land all over this school district. That land is slowly being replaced with only homes. If those homes were in the $500,000 range then we just might keep abreast of the property valuation formula. The fact we all must face is that these homes coming into the City of Pickerington are basically starter homes in the $150,000 range. If these news homes were occupied by just seniors or even empty nesters then we might have a chance to keep up with property valuation per student; they aren?’t.
The property valuation could be helped with strong commercial growth. However; our city government has embarked on a policy path of giving TIF?’s to every one that brings a business into Pickerington. Unfortunately any NEW taxes that the school district might have enjoyed are being spent on building roads and other infrastructure to keep pace with the growing population of the area.
In addition to the growing problem with our roads and traffic control we find additional needs of sewer and water capacity. Here again the city embraces a policy of turning the water and sewer plants into profit centers and competes with the surrounding government entities for the customer market for these services, resulting in wasted tax dollars. They are currently in a legal battle to annex 672 acres from the township so they can expand the utilities markets they think will deliver them big bucks. To service these NEW areas the city will need to breech current agreements with Canal Winchester and the County and spend millions of dollars to expand these utilities plants that will place a tremendous debt load onto the city users of these systems.
It is my belief that to resolve the problems facing this community and this school district we must all sit down and forge an agreement within our school district to control residential growth, increase commercial growth, and develop an economic tax base that each year increases the property VALUATION PER STUDENT in our school system. This should be our tool to measure our success.
