Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Still disagree on several points

Pickerington also boasts a 33% commercial tax base - just ask our former mayor or a number of our elected officials. You can work the numbers numerous ways to make things look the way you want them to.

13 Elementary, 2 6th grade, 3 middle, and 2 high schools. Yeah Hilliard is doing great and doesn't have any problems, except for 1 or 2 small ones! According to the link you posted in your msg it looks like Hilliard pays more in property taxes than we do.

It is easy to look at another city through rose colored glasses and think they don't have any problems and that we are so much worse off than anyone else. That is right along the same lines of someone stating ''I'm sooooo busy'' as if whom they are telling this too is less busy than they are.

I am in no way trying to say we don't have some serious issues here but I don't live in Hilliard so I can't make statements about what their problems are. But they must be big enough that the mayor wants to slow the growth down - that is all that I've been saying.

Hilliard teachers also must pay the 2% city income tax whereas some of our teachers here only pay 1% and others none.

We can continue to debate the points but I don't see what the purpose of that would be. I agree that Picktown isn't Hilliard, nor is it Baltimore, Columbus, or Grove Port. Every city has their issues and we have ours but we shouldn't belittle the perceived or real problems of others by throwing ourselves a pity party.

Hilliard - Pickerington

Brian,

There are always differences - one community to another, but I think the real issue of the Dispatch Hilliard growth control movement was their Mayor saying that the residential building rate was hurting their community. If I recall in the article he said ''We had 324 homes built last year''.

Well Pikerington had 385 homes built last year and other than even more kids added here than in Hilliard I tend to agree with that Mayor that these kinds of numbers are hurting both communities.

I'll ask the webmaster to try to link the article from the Dispatch so more people can see the content.

Admin says no tax payments

I contacted Lew Stemem about this ''make whole'' issue in the teachers pay. HE stated that the district does not differentiate pay if one teacher works at a school that requires income tax payment that is higher or lower than another district school. If you have other information about this please post it because they say the do not pay more or less dependant on where the teachers work and the tax bite they pay.

$ per Child

From the School Bell:

Property valuation per Student:

Hilliard $134,289 State ranking= 137

Pickerington $94,248 State ranking = 319


Clearly the amounts of dollars that Hilliard can deliver to their school system per child is nearly 50% more per each mil of taxation than Pickerington. That indicates to me that Hilliard has a much more balanced tax base.

What is spent per child:

Pickerington = $7,430 over half from state $3,786

Hilliard = $8,129 only $2,798 from the state

The argument for a long time has been Oh!! if we increase the commercial property it will hurt the schools because we will lose state aid. Yes we will lose state aid but we pick it up from local taxes. Which in turn delivers more money per pupil. I have heard this argument for years now and many times it came from the Pickerington Superintendent.

In other words we are paying more in property tax and delivering less per student than many of the surrounding communities and their school districts. Hilliard is a good example but they are still ahead of us.

Last night during the council meeting a number of people talked about taxation but few, like Bruce Rigelman, knew what they were talking about. Some of those that didn't know what they were talking about are serving on our Pickerington City Council. It is not the state funding formula or the General Assembly. It falls squarely on the shoulders of the local governments. It is time to correct it.


Slow residential and increase commerical. simple