Street Light bill (Pittsburgh, Lititz, Selinsgrove: real estate, refrigerator, school district)

[lititzman2003]

Does anyone else receive a separate street light bill from their town? Why don't they just incorporate it into the local tax?

Since I'm on a whining roll does anyone else think it's insane that residents in Warwick Township have to hire their own trash hauler? Again, the borough of Lititz adds the cost into the taxes. The only good thing is that I'm planning on splitting the cost with a neighbor.

[Dawne]

Here in my little community just outside of Selinsgrove, our township does add a streetlight fee and a fire hydrant fee to our annual real estate taxes.

We also hire our own garbage disposal company. It is not included in our taxes. We pay about $55 to $60 every three months and can put out up to four garbage bags a week. We've only had that many bags once or twice, when we're doing some major cleaning. I could reduce the number of bags and thus reduce the quarterly cost, but it's not that much.

These "extras" help keep our real estate taxes lower. We only pay about $1500 a year for our real estate taxes, which covers BOTH our township and the school district.

But I can understand your frustration, or the confusion some people feel when they move here from somewhere else with much higher taxes, thinking they'll save tons of money, and then discover there are lots of extras here that their taxes used to cover where they came from.

[PeterRabbit]

I live in a suburb of Pittsburgh. Our borough hires its garbage company and bills residents for it with the sewage bill. I guess the street light bill is included with the taxes. We can leave out 1 major item a week like a dresser or refrigerator and as many bags of garbage as you want. There is no discount for setting out only 1 bag a month.