Wows & Scowls
Scowl: How it is possible that the Uniontown Area School District is owed $2.4 million in unpaid real estate taxes? The school board is contemplating selling that debt to a private firm, which would in turn get the district $1.7 million up front. But aren’t tax-delinquent properties supposed to go into the fall tax sale administered by the county (which, by the way, has routinely predicated its budget on a 85 percent real estate tax collection rate)? Perhaps the state legislature, by way of alleviating the property tax burden on those who actually do pay, could make it easier to sell the property of those who don’t. Wow: Credit Laurel Highlands School Board member Ed George with being up front about the referendum his board has placed on the May ballot. It asks voters to approve a whopping .8-percent increase the 1 percent earned income tax already levied on residents, which is split equally between municipality and school district. That’s an 80-percent increase, and George is quick to point out that any household with $35,000 or more in annual wages would not make out under the proposal. That’s the kind of information residents need before casting their ballots.
Scowl: To us, for prematurely criticizing the Albert Gallatin Area School Board for ignoring the recommendation of its tax study commission and voting to put a proposed .4-percent hike in the earned income tax on this May’s ballot. As other school districts have acted on the matter, it turns out that AG was not alone in going down that path. Further, it has become clearer that it was a state requirement, rather than a school district option, to put such a question on the ballot, using a number essentially predetermined by a calculation all districts must use. It essence, the tax study commission concept was a sham, because what those citizen volunteers recommended really didn’t matter anyway.
Wow: Brownsville Borough employees, including police, will be back on the job Monday, reversing layoffs in early December caused by a budget crunch.