Belle Vernon school board considers tax settlement
BELLE VERNON – When members of the Belle Vernon Area School Board reviewed their agenda for next week’s meeting, solicitor Mary Lynch Friedline requested that they add discussion and action to approve a settlement with Farnham and Pfile Construction Inc. concerning a business privilege tax. “This has been an ongoing dispute since 1997 about what they have to pay and what is the correct calculation of business privilege tax,” explained Friedline. “It is a complicated area where there are a lot of different scenarios. In one scenario, they would pay about $27,000. In the broadest aspect there could be an argument that they would pay as much as $50,000, and another scenario would say that $3,500 would be all they would pay.
Friedline said that in making a settlement with the company, the district would save money in legal fees because the dispute would most likely have taken two to three years in court.
“By doing this we are not binding ourselves to take similar actions in the future, and this way the district will get half of whatever is paid because it will be split with the township,” said Friedline.
Board President Aaron Bialon said that in addition to discussing the matter of settlement at Monday’s meeting, the board will consider granting several requests from employees to take leave for postpartum recovery and family medical leave.
In other business expected next week, the board will accept some resignations, and consider approving the hiring of Michael Steeber as varsity assistant football coach, Al Gagliardi as boys freshman soccer head coach, Michael Grant as an unpaid volunteer assistant boys freshman soccer coach, Heather Kristen as girls middle school basketball assistant coach, Bernadette stark as an unpaid volunteer assistant girls middle school soccer coach, Jeremy Rafferty as middle school wrestling head coach and Steven Eiler as middle school assistant wrestling coach.
Director Deborah Puglia also requested that the board decide on a fee for driving permits at the high school.