Seniors and property tax Monroe (York, Sharon: real estate market, 2014, houses)

[ctrlaltdelete]

Does anyone know if Monroe County provides a property tax break/relief for senior citizens..
and if their senior status is factored in the assessment of a property.. thanks ahead

[Wells5]

I'm a senior and I get no property tax relief except for the "homestead exemption," which is available to most all property owners. It's not very much.

Many communities in New York State offer substantial property tax relief to poor people and seniors. Is that where you're coming from?

[ughhnyc]

Monroe County is one of the worst country's in the US in terms of property tax adjustments.

Im currently paying $8300 a year on house valuated 85k.

God do I ever regret buying here.

The school boards completely destroyed the real estate market, and its only getting worse.

I know of two seniors who have had their houses ceased and sold at the sheriffs auction due to lack of ability to pay the ridiculous school taxes.

If you live on a SSI budget, the school board will take your house from you here. Fact.

[Wells5]

A big driver of tax increases in Monroe and Pike Counties is the influx of families with children. This influx requires the construction of new schools, teachers, school buses, curriculum coordinators, etc. etc. Pennsylvania is the only state in the union where the local populace is denied a referendum on local municipal bond proposals. This means that local school boards with almost unlimited powers of taxation can build "Taj Mahal" schools just by voting on it and thereby hang a huge debt on local property owners.

Throw the powerful and greedily aggressive teachers union in the mix and you have the formula for endless tax increases.

[Gettingouttahere]

Teachers do not make a ton of money up here and I certainly would not hang Monroe's tax problems on them. The problem is many-fold: a state system where allotted state money does not EVER go down, even if a county's population declines (take a look at the $$ flowing to rural counties in western PA - whose powerful legislators rule the statehouse, BTW); a system that has no hometown state rep for Monroe (we have a part-timer who represents bits of several counties and doesn't show fealty to any in particular, and who also has no seniority or power); a system that gives long-lasting tax holidays to any new business coming here, meaning that the tax burden stays on residents, not business; and a system where we have mind-boggling duplication of every administrative function among the gazillions of local school districts. Why do we need a half-dozen administrators making $150k-plus in every school district? For that matter, why do we need so many school districts? A better system would decentralize the school districts - Florida has one school board per county, e.g. - and lop off millions and millions of dollars in overhead.

And BTW, in NJ, residents vote on the school budgets and routinely vote them down, and the school boards get to implement their plans anyway, citing hardship (a very easy threshold to overcome).

[log living]

Monroe county property taxes aren't just high...they are obscene. Corruption from top to bottom.

[Wells5]

Originally Posted by Gettingouttahere

Teachers do not make a ton of money up here and I certainly would not hang Monroe's tax problems on them.

According to the NEA, the average teacher's salary in PA is $63,000. Only New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, California and Alaska have higher salaries and many areas in PA have a cost of living much lower than the aforementioned states.

Originally Posted by Gettingouttahere

And BTW, in NJ, residents vote on the school budgets and routinely vote them down, and the school boards get to implement their plans anyway, citing hardship (a very easy threshold to overcome).

That is true in some cases but most school boards will modify their budgets somewhat and send it back for another vote. There is also no way of getting around a vetoed municipal bond proposal other than resubmitting it with modifications.

Governor Tom Ridge ran on a platform of instituting a voter initiative and a local referendum in PA and reneged on both promises. He also instituted a teacher recertification scheme whereby teachers must continue to take more courses in order to keep their certification. The course expenses are reimbursed by the school districts and more courses mean that teachers get bumped up on the salary scale. This is a waste of time and money but it looks good from a political perspective,.

[mrsfixit99]

Originally Posted by ctrlaltdelete

Does anyone know if Monroe County provides a property tax break/relief for senior citizens..
and if their senior status is factored in the assessment of a property.. thanks ahead

...for being a senior. You will get sucked dry until the day you drop dead.

And you will only get a $650 property tax rebate *if* you are very, very poor. You just about have to qualify for welfare to receive it.

And no, age in not factored into your assessment. And most of the county hasn't been assessed since 1989. We're due. And like what happened in Luzerne, and Indiana counties, some people saw their taxes triple.

If you don't own a house here already my heartfelt advice to you is to run like like hell from Monroe county... :-/

[Gettingouttahere]

Public salaries: It pays to be a top-level educator in the Poconos - News - poconorecord.com - Stroudsburg, PA

Public employee salaries in the Poconos - searchable database.
Yes, the average teacher salary up here is higher than I thought.
BUT the school district administrative salaries are freaking criminal, if you ask me.

[jtab4994]

The only outlier is Superintendent Sharon Laverdure at East Stroudsburg Area School District. Laverdure was paid $127,339.08 in calendar year 2013 and received a raise to $140,000 in March 2014.

Sharon is retiring at the end of the school year, so the job is open. The ESASD board voted last night to spend $15,000.00 on a search for a replacement.