AASD board split on tax hike plan
District needs $2M more over next 2 years to meet obligations
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Board member Sharon Bream put it bluntly on Monday as the board voted to submit preliminary budget documents to the state.
"This is so they (majority of the board) can raise taxes to the maximum," she said to board member Dick Lockard.
President John Donley jumped on that comment.
"It doesn't mean we are going to do that. We just want to see the number," he said.
The state sets limits on the maximum increase school boards can levy. If a district wants to exceed that limit, it must turn to its residents in a voter referendum.
However, the state allows boards to raise taxes above its limit without a voter referendum if the district meets cost criteria for retirement or special education.
By the district administration's calculations, the district meets those criteria and the maximum increase the board may be able to levy without a voter referendum could be 5.5 mills if the state approves. That increase would generate the $1.2 million the administration wants. However, district officials did not provide the dollar impact that increase would have on taxpayers.
The district needs an additional $2 million over the next two years to make final payments on debt from the construction of the junior high school in 2006.
More construction debt is foreseeable as the board continues steps toward building a new high school near the current facility and an elementary school at Keith field by 2020.
The state may not approve the district's proposed increase. If it does, the Altoona Area School Board could raise real estate taxes above the state limit without a voter referendum. But that doesn't mean it will, Donley said.
"I'd like to know what it is. I go down to car dealerships to look at cars, but I don't buy them," he said.
Bream continued the analogy: "But you don't ask how much over the retail price you can pay for it. That's what you are doing. Let's not dance around it."
When it came to a vote Monday, Bream, Ron Johnston and Judy Berryman voted against submitting budget documents to the state to find out if the district will receive approval to raise taxes above the state index.
The measure passed 6-3 with votes from Donley, Lockard, Dutch Brennan, Bill Ceglar, Wayne Hippo and John Klingeman.
Brennan made it clear his vote did not mean they would follow up on the expanded tax increase if the state approved.
"If we are here to make multi-million dollar decisions, we have to know all the facets of that," Brennan said. "I'm not a fan of raising taxes. Not every vote is about pulling the trigger. It's about knowledge sometimes."
Mirror Staff Writer Russ O'Reilly is at 946-7435