Keeping up with Inflation
We'll try to get you the financial information that we want. Vince has been underwater for the past few weeks, for understandable reasons. Just remind him.
Believe me, we are looking for every savings in our budget that we can find. We trimmed $1.8 million from the budget for new staff for next year, which included administrators. We have not filled the position of Communications Director, which became vacant when Doug Baker resigned. We have under consideration a proposal to eliminate middle school, and go to a K-6 grade configuration, in order to make fuller use of existing classroom space and thereby postpone for 2-3 years the construction of another school. We are looking at various other ways to reduce transportation expense, which costs us more than $4 million per year, and after salaries and wages and health insurance is our largest expense. We
also are considering measures to try to control the increase in our health insurance premiums. And we have an array of other cost-cutting measures under consideration. Believe me, this school board is determined not to waste a dollar of the taxpayers' money.
However, you also need to realize that, under Ohio law, real estate taxes do not keep up with inflation. Under Ohio law, whenever the value of a school district's property tax base increases solely due to revaluation (i.e., inflation), the county auditor is required by law to reduce the tax rate so that the school district collects no additional revenue from existing properties. Thus tax levies are seldom collected at the rate actually approved by the voters. In the PLSD, voters have approved over the years more than 60 mills. However, do to the ''tax reduction factor'' that I have just described, this is now collected at the rate of less than 23 mills. You might look for my postings on the board under the heading ''House Bill 920'' for a fuller explanation of all of this.
The bottom line is that school districts must keep asking for additional millage just to remain in place, and just to keep up with inflation. We all would be thrilled with a law that would allow us to keep up with inflation.
The real problem in our community is our weak tax base. Our assessed property valuation per pupiln is one of the lowest in the area, primarily due to our general lack of commercial property. Thus Lancaster can afford to spend substantially more per student than we do, despite having significantly lower tax rates -- because it has a significantly larger tax base, with significantly more commercial property. The smaller the tax base, the higher the tax rates required to provide good schools.
We need to work together to control residential growth, which is simply out of control, and to focus on building a strong commercial tax base that will support our schools and our community for generations at tax rates we can all afford.
We'll try to get you the financial information that we want. Vince has been underwater for the past few weeks, for understandable reasons. Just remind him.
Believe me, we are looking for every savings in our budget that we can find. We trimmed $1.8 million from the budget for new staff for next year, which included administrators. We have not filled the position of Communications Director, which became vacant when Doug Baker resigned. We have under consideration a proposal to eliminate middle school, and go to a K-6 grade configuration, in order to make fuller use of existing classroom space and thereby postpone for 2-3 years the construction of another school. We are looking at various other ways to reduce transportation expense, which costs us more than $4 million per year, and after salaries and wages and health insurance is our largest expense. We
also are considering measures to try to control the increase in our health insurance premiums. And we have an array of other cost-cutting measures under consideration. Believe me, this school board is determined not to waste a dollar of the taxpayers' money.
However, you also need to realize that, under Ohio law, real estate taxes do not keep up with inflation. Under Ohio law, whenever the value of a school district's property tax base increases solely due to revaluation (i.e., inflation), the county auditor is required by law to reduce the tax rate so that the school district collects no additional revenue from existing properties. Thus tax levies are seldom collected at the rate actually approved by the voters. In the PLSD, voters have approved over the years more than 60 mills. However, do to the ''tax reduction factor'' that I have just described, this is now collected at the rate of less than 23 mills. You might look for my postings on the board under the heading ''House Bill 920'' for a fuller explanation of all of this.
The bottom line is that school districts must keep asking for additional millage just to remain in place, and just to keep up with inflation. We all would be thrilled with a law that would allow us to keep up with inflation.
The real problem in our community is our weak tax base. Our assessed property valuation per pupiln is one of the lowest in the area, primarily due to our general lack of commercial property. Thus Lancaster can afford to spend substantially more per student than we do, despite having significantly lower tax rates -- because it has a significantly larger tax base, with significantly more commercial property. The smaller the tax base, the higher the tax rates required to provide good schools.
We need to work together to control residential growth, which is simply out of control, and to focus on building a strong commercial tax base that will support our schools and our community for generations at tax rates we can all afford.
