LancasterOnline.com:News:Anger in Eastern Lancaster

QUOTE(GetReal @ Jul 23 2008, 03:12 PM)

I stand corrected about the vote. Sitar appears to bring an unbiased opinion to the table which I do not see with the others when they suddenly change course and give the morals excuse. In fact, look at the budget debate they had, he actually suggested a higher tax increase. Again, it's not the decision, it's how the decision was made.

A lack of bias was communicated by suggesting a tax hike? That is very thought provoking.

QUOTE(Shawn @ Jul 23 2008, 09:16 AM)

Can you point to the specific financial decisions they've made that have contributed to the lower taxes? Perhaps its as simple as the fact that costs are lower in that neck of the woods? Or, perhaps that area is less dense? Or, perhaps they haven't had to build any new schools recently? Lower relative tax rate = sound financial decisions sounds a bit simplistic without supporting evidence. What have they specifically done to keep costs down that other districts have failed to do?
Later...Shawn

I'll give an example. No major repairs/upgrades to Caernarvon Elementary in 40 years since it was built. This made it more economically feasible to ship all 169 kids to Blue Ball Elementary rather that do the upgrades necessary to keep the school open. Of course this saved tax money this year and in past years, but now they are going to pay something like $275,000 to have the building torn down and reseed the lot. That's so they can sell the lot, but not a school building and, therefore, protect our school district from a charter school. Not to mention that Blue Ball is now crowded, our district is left with only 3% excess capacity in the classrooms (one more development will use that up and Cheltenham, Blue Ball Commons, the 3 new developments in Terre Hill, and the Hawk Valley development aren't completed yet). Can't imagine what our taxes will look like in the future when we have to build another new elementary. We're already building a >$20 million addition to Garden Spot.
BTW no one is getting elected to the school board without Chuck Trupe's approval. He's the Eastern Lancaster County Republican chairman. I personally know qualified Republican candidates who were not given party approval because they were too moderate or didn't agree with him. (Chuck Trupe is the founder of at least 2 PACs: United Pennsylvanians and Voters for Accountable Representation and has served as treasurer of U.S. Taxpayers Party). If anyone knows what Trupe does for a living I know a lot of people who'd love to know. I'm guessing his main source of income comes from these PACs.

QUOTE(Shawn @ Jul 23 2008, 08:16 AM)

Can you point to the specific financial decisions they've made that have contributed to the lower taxes? Perhaps its as simple as the fact that costs are lower in that neck of the woods? Or, perhaps that area is less dense? Or, perhaps they haven't had to build any new schools recently? Lower relative tax rate = sound financial decisions sounds a bit simplistic without supporting evidence. What have they specifically done to keep costs down that other districts have failed to do?
Later...Shawn

ELANCO has a very high populace of Amish and Mennonite property owners, many of them owning large farms and businesses. They pay dearly to educate the public’s kids, but the tax payers do not pay to educate their kids, beings they have their own schools.

That may be a factor in why the board has been able to keep the taxes lower.

Were the hundreds of privately schooled and homeschooled kids in Elanco, dumped into the public system, can you imagine the hissy fit on the part of those complaining about $60.00 gambling bucks.

QUOTE(thoughts from the east @ Jul 24 2008, 01:55 AM)

I'll give an example. No major repairs/upgrades to Caernarvon Elementary in 40 years since it was built. This made it more economically feasible to ship all 169 kids to Blue Ball Elementary rather that do the upgrades necessary to keep the school open. Of course this saved tax money this year and in past years, but now they are going to pay something like $275,000 to have the building torn down and reseed the lot. That's so they can sell the lot, but not a school building and, therefore, protect our school district from a charter school. Not to mention that Blue Ball is now crowded, our district is left with only 3% excess capacity in the classrooms (one more development will use that up and Cheltenham, Blue Ball Commons, the 3 new developments in Terre Hill, and the Hawk Valley development aren't completed yet). Can't imagine what our taxes will look like in the future when we have to build another new elementary. We're already building a >$20 million addition to Garden Spot.

Thanks for the insight. That is kind of what I was thinking. They have been putting off the inevitable. Once the school age population grows, and they need to start building new schools, and keep taxes at the lowest level in Lanc. County, then I'll be impressed. I've been looking at houses in that area recently and I'm seeing a lot of new developments going in. Most of them are pretty small, but the area seems to be growing.
Later...Shawn

QUOTE(Goldilocks @ Jul 24 2008, 07:30 AM)

ELANCO has a very high populace of Amish and Mennonite property owners, many of them owning large farms and businesses. They pay dearly to educate the public's kids, but the tax payers do not pay to educate their kids, beings they have their own schools.

That may be a factor in why the board has been able to keep the taxes lower.

That may be entirely true. I think it also has to due with how much we spend per student. Solanco is the only school district with lower tax millage than ours, but they also have a higher number of plain people. That said, the choice to not attend public school is their own and, were they to attend the public school system, it would cause serious issues for our district due to the dramatic increase in dropout rate since they do not continue after 8th grade.
However, many (if not most) of the farmers (plain or not) have their farms in Clean and Green and are already paying lower tax rates than the regular homeowner. There was another front page story about that last week as the township and our school district allowed a property in Clean and Green to be converted out of agricultural use without requiring the back taxes to be paid. It should be noted that part of the property was in Ephrata school district -- they, and Ephrata township, (and the county) collected the back taxes owed by the removal from Clean and Green. This property also was subsequently removed from the tax roles altogether as it was declared a church property (will be used as a banquet facility for weddings/funerals and is temporarily rented to another church for services) -- I'd love to add up the amount of "church properties" in our school district that are exempt from taxes, I'm sure it is substantial as we have a church on just about every corner.