Senator Responds to School Board With Tax Information
Senator Don White will be in West Kittanning tonight at 6PM for a town hall meeting.
by David Croyle
While Senator Don White brushes up on his notes for his planned appearance at the West Kittanning Fire Hall tonight for a town hall meeting, school board members are busy perusing over charts and graphs provided in a letter by him concerning Armstrong School District taxes.
ASD Board President Rose Stitt had publicly requested White to provide information that he is using that states the ASD taxes are among the highest in the county.
White responded in a two-page letter followed by six pages of charts and graphs.
“I have also enclosed an excerpt from prepared remarks I made at the Armstrong Chamber luncheon on April 30, 2010 in which I express my concern over what I believe is a significant property tax burden for the constituents I represent,” White wrote.
His documentation was compiled by the Armstrong County Assessment office and the Armstrong County Industrial Authority (IDA). He attached two charts comparing commercial and residential school district property tax burden for properties assessed at various levels for all eight school districts covering portions of Armstrong County.
“This chart clearly illustrates ASD has the highest property tax burden of the five school districts I represent and the third highest property tax burden of the eight school districts serving Armstrong County,” White wrote.
White gave an example in his letter. “For example, the attached data means a family living in Templeton (ASD) pays $2750 in school district property taxes on a home assessed at $50,000 while just a few miles north in Distant (Redbank SD) the same valued property pays $1038 – over 150% more in school district property taxes.
The response by White indicates the widening tension between the Senator and the school district since he publicly made comments condemning the school board for reopening Elderton Junior-Senior High School.
School district board members said they received the information as late as yesterday and were not able to digest it thoroughly for a response.
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Local News, Regional News | David Croyle October 27, 2010
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By Joan, October 27, 2010 @ 7:07 AM
THANK YOU SENATOR WHITE! So many of us appreciate your help in exposing the lies and manipulations of Mr. Solak, Ms. Stitt and their minions. I cannot believe their audacity and arrogance in so rudely questioning you in the first place. It was very kind that you even dignified them with any response at all. I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for their, I am sure unpaid, response to these FACTS! I bet there are eyebrows a flyin’! Game, Set,……Come on people we need to make MATCH….VOTE THEM OUT!
By DANBOY, October 27, 2010 @ 7:45 AM
Senator White you dirty rat!!!
The anticipation is killing me how about you??? How will the Dr. Director twist these facts and justify the current decisions and now actions of he and his four minions and the HONORABLE Madame President???
Her scrap book must be getting pretty thick!!
By ASDpayer, October 27, 2010 @ 7:55 AM
So here we are.
A school district with declining enrollment.
A county with high unemployment.
A state senator who tells it like it is.
And what does our school board do? It spends money foolishly.
Ugh
By worthingtonman, October 27, 2010 @ 9:00 AM
By digest, I am sure that means until Herr Solak trys to find a way to spin the info to make the Senator appear as a dullard. Now that Rose has her info I wonder if she is still so sure about the $82 million dollar question. These pie in the sky dreams they have developed with the Hope and Change they are predicting are just that. And we all can see how that Hope and Change has played out in our government.
By Chris_Choncek, October 27, 2010 @ 9:31 AM
This is an incorrect headline. It should read, “Senator Responds to Ms. Stitt with Tax Information” Please fix this. Further, I’m not busy perusing anything because I understand how taxes work.
By Jen16226, October 27, 2010 @ 9:55 AM
Good!
I am glad that Senator White took the time to provide the documentation.
Now…..President Stitt. PLEASE swallow your pride, say to the good people of ASD that you truly didn’t realize how badly the people are getting gouged, put the brakes on this spending spree and have some good dialogue with the other members of the board to come up with a viable solution for EVERY TAXPAYER.
By dawnterri, October 27, 2010 @ 10:34 AM
so glad senator white got the facts for all to see
By mcfee, October 27, 2010 @ 10:45 AM
then please Mr. Choncek if you would, please explain it to me. I just looked at my school district only tax bill. I live in ASD, have house/property (less than an acre) assessed at $75,000 and pay $1730.25.
By Jan, October 27, 2010 @ 11:00 AM
Once upon a time in a very rural part of western PA, there lived a school district and in this district there were seven high schools and a multitude of elementary buildings. The district was thriving with many businesses and industries and the students were happy and their parents were happy to have their community schools. Everyone was happy!
But over time, things began to change. The economy worsened, business and industry folded or was outsourced to other parts of the world. People lost jobs, people moved and little by little, the small communities of schools began to close. The Armstrong county residents just could not afford to maintain and repair buildings with such low enrollment. It was a sad time for all. Students and parents weeped that their beloved alma maters were closing down and then there were four high schools and less elementary buildings in the district. However, everyone adjusted to the change, realized that their taxes could not afford such expensive “private school” educations and they moved on.
Once again, the economy worsened- OH NO! and it was determined that in order to keep our taxes in check, another school with low enrollment needed to close. The people of the area were outraged to have this happen once again, and they fought hard to keep their little community school open….. in comes a new board configuration and ALAS, they reopened the school and promised to make their school bigger and better with brick and mortar and no evil wolves would blow it down. And in order to try and pacify everyone, this board majority decided to renovate all of the other schools..hooray, hooray, happy days once again.
In walks the evil senator, who proclaimed that such renovations to schools with low enrollment could not be justified. Taxes in Armstrong County were one of the highest and this in turn was inhibiting new business and industry from locating to our area. The good residents would have to “foot the bill” for the impending rise in taxes and everyone was alarmed and scared as to how they would pay for this.
Not to worry good people- the school board majority found some “cheap money to borrow- claimed it was the best time to do this” and with PROJECTED savings, we should be able to afford the $82+M to build and renovate schools that could barely fill seats.
The good people in areas whose schools had closed were scratching their heads wondering why their schools were closed. And schools slated to be closed were scratching their heads as to why their schools were closing and everyone in general was scratching their heads wondering how they could afford this. But the proclamation went out “We shall build, we don’t care how it gets paid for and they will be HERO’s. And thus, the story continues and there appears to be no happy ending here.
By scott_starr, October 27, 2010 @ 12:29 PM
@mcfee:
We will let the county assessor know of your dilemma!
Don’t worry once the gymnasiums are built your tax bill will be higher, no problem, that is unless we continue to borrow money to make payments. Funny, isn’t that what caused the housing collapse? people taking “equity” out of their homes to pay for them??? But I guess a taxing authority has a lot more room to raise money than people who work.
By bweitzel, October 27, 2010 @ 12:42 PM
I guess I’m still amazed that Ms. Stitt is so out of touch with this issue. How can the president of our school board make such important decisions for our district when she doesn’t even realize that people in this county are already struggling with their higher than average property taxes?
By amazed, October 27, 2010 @ 1:53 PM
To mcfee: We’ve been told again and again that we are all taxed equally at 55 mills on the assessed valuation of our property. If you are assessed at $75,000, the “face amount due” should be $4,125. I just checked the two bills we received on two properties and the calculation comes out to the exact penny as written on the bills: Assessed valuation x .055 = “face amount due”. You are one lucky tax payer! You might not want to spread your tax information too widely.
By Jan, October 27, 2010 @ 2:04 PM
@mcfee- WOW- I’ll trade you. From what you’re saying, you have a real bargain there- I wouldn’t complain if I were you- wait about a year when they go up and then complain. Mine are about 75% higher than yours with less acreage.Tell me who should be complaining??????
By dee, October 27, 2010 @ 2:15 PM
@mcfee Are you speaking of the market value of your home or the assessed value? I believe the assessed value is about 50% of the market value. If you are indeed talking about the assessed value then someone made a mistake and you got off easy.
By amazed, October 27, 2010 @ 2:21 PM
BTW, McFee, we do know that the assessed valuation as printed on the tax bill is only 50% of the actual valuation. So perhaps you meant to say that for tax purposes your property is assessed at $37,500.
By mcfee, October 27, 2010 @ 2:46 PM
actually I meant what I said. The assessor tells me my house/property is assessed at $75,000. You pay 55 mills on half of the assessed value of your property which would be in my case $2062.50 add in the smidgeon they assessed a little part of property my in-laws sold us makes my ASD bill 2066.08 minus the Act 1 exclusion and my bill at face amount is $1726.67. So my question I suppose should have been was the Templeton house assessed at $100,000 and thusly pay taxes on half that or is it assessed at $50,000 and they are paying too much? Mr. Starr you didn’t have to be snide about it. I was asking a simple question.
By Elliot, October 27, 2010 @ 3:47 PM
@mcfee
I’m confused by your post too. My understanding is that the assessed value is roughly half of the market value when it was last assessed. You pay 55 mils on ALL of the assessed value (at least that’s what I’m paying). It does indeed sound like you’re property is assessed at $37,500, based on a market value of $75,000 when it was last figured. The Templeton example would be a $50,000 assessed value on a house worth $100,000 in the market at the time of the last re-assessment.
By GingledorfDerlinini, October 27, 2010 @ 3:53 PM
mcfee… get real.
the numbers are the numbers. your can’t dispute fact. you are taxed (as everyone is) at 50% of your assessed value. whether in templeton or east franklin or elderton or numine.
you can’t win this one with your fuzzy math.
still wondering what rose will do with the information now that she has it.
amazing that even though they had the information on monday night that they still voted to assume nearly 90 million of debt.
thank you senator white for presenting the information.
the fight is far from over. we still need your help, senator!!!
By scott_starr, October 27, 2010 @ 4:11 PM
@mcfee, I was not being snide, sarcastic, but not snide.
I would say you were snide by asking Mr. Choncek to explain it to you.
He is not the asessor, nor did he ask Senator White for the details, as Ms. Stitt was the party who asked.
By GingledorfDerlinini, October 27, 2010 @ 4:16 PM
mcfee…
i am pretty sure sentor white was giving an example of two properties that are close in proximity…
By ASDpayer, October 27, 2010 @ 4:55 PM
What is even more interesting is Don White just included other school districts in Armstrong County. Go to Butler, Indiana, Freeport, Sarver, Saxonburg, Tarentum, Brackenridge and the taxes are lower by half. So a business in looking for a place to locate in Western Pa. Lo and behold Armstrong County is out of the running early, when they check the taxes.
By Elderton Parent, October 27, 2010 @ 7:26 PM
After reading the entire letter, I have some questions that are important to me and also to the economic development of my community.
Who is responsible for economic development, road improvements, etc for this area?
If Senator White is not in favor of the renovations then he must support consolidation?
What are the statistics on business and industry in this area leaving because of school taxes?
What are the statistics on KOZ and the benefit to our area?
What is Senator White doing to “work with” the school district and education? Has he done anything to this point?
Is he implying that a new school will bring economic stability to this area?
By the figures on the attached spreadsheets it appears to me that that there is a serious problem with the efforts of the Senator, Reps, Comissioners of this area. It sounds like change is due all around.
Senator White ran his campaign to improve the highways in and out of this area to help with economic development. Where is that improvment? Or is that for the next guy to fix?
I’m just not buying his words of promise. I haven’t seen enough in all his years in office.
By KC&thesunshineband, October 27, 2010 @ 9:28 PM
Eldertonparent, can’t even dignify you with a response other than “give it up, baby give it uh-huh-up, nanananananananana-now, give it up, baby give it uh-huh-up”! Bashing Senator White is certainly not helping your cause. Sorry if my flippancy is offensive to anyone, but this gets more and more ludicrous as it goes. If you don’t laugh you most certainly will cry!
By scott_starr, October 27, 2010 @ 10:14 PM
@Elderton parent:
you must have stayed late at the meeting on Monday with the rest of the 6 to learn about these graphs.
In my business experience I would like to answer your questions.
1. Economic Development - You can’t count of politicians. What you can count on is a business evaluating Taxes, Schools,labor pool and so on.
road improvements - with our population, we are lucky we have paved roads, I don’t mean this to be smart, but we don’t carry the weight for anyone to give a crap, vote wise for a politician.
2. No, one can be against renovations and consolidation. You have given a false choice.
3. Eljer, PPG, 5 star etc. This is my experience, it is not so much the amount of taxes ( to a degree) but what you get for your taxes. I mean look at California.
4. KOZ have done little, the whole darn area is a KOZ zone, and we could get no one during an economic expansion.
5. It should be the other way around, the ASD should be working with Politicians and more importantly business. In general there is little interest in education in this area.
6. No where did he say, mention or insinuate that. At least not in this article, have you seen the entire letter? I’ve not.
7. Well, are you saying there is no culpability of the ASD? our budget is huge, the opportunities are so laking here. I remember as a kid kittaning had a full crew of employees taking care of parks, garbage etc, the police station was actually staffed and so on. I can not say about other communities, but we are moving backwards.
8. When a politician say s/he is here to help….run, fast and far, make sure you run backwards so they don’t pick your pocket.
The cognitive dissonance come from those who want 4 high schools and low taxes, it doesn’t work like that.
By mcfee, October 27, 2010 @ 10:24 PM
Mr. Starr - I wasn’t being snide by asking Mr. Choncek to explain something that I truly wasn’t understanding because he posted that he understood how taxes work. I am now sorry that I didn’t do the math before asking Mr. Choncek to explain. I probably would have figured out on my own that Mr. White was really talking about a house worth $100,000 and not $50,000.
By ASDpayer, October 27, 2010 @ 10:49 PM
Dear Elderton Parent
Well the whole county is in decline. We are losing about 8% of our population every decade. Just look at the decline in school enrollment in the past 20 years, or 30 years. The fact is businesses are leaving the area, our population is aging. I have been to at least 10 meetings on economic development in the past 5 years. The big obstacle is always our high property taxes.
The hospital director, Dr. Altman, has told me and others that it is very difficult to recruit doctors as they find our school taxes out of line.
I am no fan of Don White, but in this case he is pointing out the obvious. You can attack Don, all you want, but the high taxes are killing us. The renovations of 80 million dollars will increase everyone’s taxes. When you add in the pension costs, the increase in teacher salaries that will take place each year, it just gets worse.
The figures on the spreadsheets are the result of a board out of control. You cannot blame the commissioners or the reps for the school taxes. It comes down to a few school directors.
Rose Stitt asked the Senator for the facts behind his statements. He gave them to her and the board. Now it is time for the board to step forward and take responsibility for their profligacy. But I am not holding my breath. Time and again this board has refused to communicate with those of who pay the bills.
By Watching, October 27, 2010 @ 11:35 PM
Elderton Parent
keep thinking ask a lot of questions you are gonna learn something. We must hold all elected officials responsible. Also the money that gets reimbursed by the state. I wonder where the state gets it? We all are responsible !!
By kitttwp4life, October 28, 2010 @ 6:04 AM
Well, there you go Rose. Now you have been made a fool by the State Senator. I mean, you are a school board member who is drunk with power. Demanding from a State Senator? Now, what are you going to do about it? I know, you will make excuses, say he is wrong, if you even have the guts to respond, I am sure Solak will be the one talking. I am just sick over all of this, the vendettas, the making people feel like they cannot talk. Perhaps if you want to take a look at cost savings, you would have given the new “Superintendent” a contract more in line with what he deserves instead of closing our school.
I saw on Facebook there is a So Long Solak page. Hopefully he goes and you go as well. Rose, I know for one I will be campaigning for someone else, someone that will not sell his/her soul down the river. It is not too late to save KT! Hopefully the teachers will stand together, they cannot fire all of you if you stand together, can you imagine the embarrassment, but then again, they probably do not get embarrassed by their actions.
Ball is in your court Rose, let’s see how you play with it. My guess is you will stumble over your words and shed a tear….
By pacountrygirl, October 28, 2010 @ 9:27 AM
I too am a lifelong resident of Kittanning Twp. Many of you seem to forget it was the actions of the previous, majority, board that caused the need to close KT. Once the Plumcreek kids were sent to Elderton there are not enough students there to justify keeping it open. It is a great little school that I attended and all of my children also. It saddens me also to see it close but the threat had been made many years ago and Rose did fight to keep it open. Of course now you are going to say the same about Elderton High. The difference is, Elderton is not a high school by itself. You talk about less than 300 kids but you don’t include the elementary kids which makes the number around 800, I believe. It is a connected building. I really don’t understand what most of you want. You talk consolidation but when schools are consolidated, KT and Elderton, Kittanning Jr high and Kittanning Sr. high, that does not meet your approval either. I still think the bottom line is, Kittanning wants a new school. It has been stated openly more than once. I do believe without question that Kittanning and Ford City should be consolidated but where should it be built and who is going to give up what? There again is would require a larger investment than we are facing with the renovations. We just can’t have things both ways. This school board inherited most of these problems, including the rate of taxes. They are trying their best to deal with the circumstances that exist. They have taken many cost saving steps that many of you refuse to acknowledge or are honestly not aware has been done. It is not going to meet the approval of everyone no matter what they do. I am getting very tired of all the fighting, arguing and name calling. Yelling begets yelling. Scott, I agree with few things that you say, but I do agree it is hard to believe anything said by a politican, especially with elections looming. I am not sure what the best course of action should be for any of us. I know one thing for certain, it has nothing to do with the size or lavishiness of a school building to ensure the children inside are getting a quailty education. I would love to see all property taxes abolished in this state. Too bad we can’t stand united to fight Harrisburg on that front. Other states get along without it and we could too.
By scott_starr, October 28, 2010 @ 10:07 AM
@pacountrygirl:
I’ve stated many times, and this is my entire issue. Spending $80Mm + does nothing to increase educational opportunity in the region, it may give us “nice schools” visually, but little else.
My beef is we need to FIRST develop a 21st century curricula, then see how many buildings we need to educate our kids properly.
PA country girl, what if the methodology is changed and Elementary goes to Kittg Twp., Elderton Sr. High goes to W.S.H.S. and the Elderton complex is closed?
If Kittg and FC were to combine, I don’t care where the physical location is!
Concerning “savings of this school board” we have a new super at $30K more than the previous, we have a co-super at $500 / day, we have people coming in to train people for jobs they were give, (I’m waiting for this information) and we are spending $80MM.
Finally, if schools were not closed, imagine how high our taxes would be now! You know it’s funny when savings for closing Elderton started rolling in, Jimmy et al. hired a forensic accountant for $4,000 to investigate, now, that the savings are really rolling in, they are saying ” hey our account balance is growing”. Maybe we need another investigation?
By bweitzel, October 28, 2010 @ 1:44 PM
@ pacountrygirl
The Elderton complex may have 800 students in the entire building, but unless the grade school and high school kids are taught in the same class rooms, the high school “side” is still WAY underutilized.
I absolutely do not have a problem with renovations to the elementary school or even keeping it in Elderton. Smaller, community schools are great for the primary school setting, but this mindset is stifling the high school kids - not only in Elderton, but across our district.
And do you really want your 7th grader riding the bus, attending school assemblies, etc. with seniors? Why is it that more progressive districts promote the middle school concept but the ASD does not?
Aside from the length of bus rides for the South Bend kids, I have not heard one reasonable argument for keeping Elderton High School open, let alone spending millions on renovations.
As far as the character and credibility of our current board? How about asking the kids who had their transfer requests denied or those who were forced to sit out of sports this year. Yeah, this board majority is really looking out for what’s best for the ENTIRE district, aren’t they?