City school taxes on the rise (Pittsburgh: 2014, public school, to live)

[zman63]

Cheap to live here huh? The tax man is coming.

Pittsburgh public school board approves 2 percent tax increase - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[FreightTrainRunning]

Oh, no. That's going to cost me almost $50 more a year. What shall I do?

[AaronPGH]

Fine with this. It's always a good idea to properly fund schools.

[BarqCider]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Fine with this. It's always a good idea to properly fund schools.

as if that's going to the schools

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by GeneW

Oh, no. That's going to cost me almost $50 more a year. What shall I do?

That's roughly $4 per month. Maybe one less Tall Mocha Frappucino per month?

[Moby Hick]

If you read the article, they are getting $10 million less than they thought they would get because of the appeals to the reassessment. Since they were actually trying to be revenue neutral when setting the millage after the reassessment, I think this means that the $3 million dollar tax increase is actually a $4 million dollar tax cut still ($3 million increase in 2013 and 2014).

[FreightTrainRunning]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

That's roughly $4 per month. Maybe one less Tall Mocha Frappucino per month?

You didn't think that I was serious, did you? I'm going to have to adjust my sarcasm levels.

[AaronPGH]

Originally Posted by BarqCider

as if that's going to the schools

I don't have a tin foil hat on my head immediately when it comes to everything government or education related. I usually form my opinion based on how that particular branch or group has been known to handle funds in the past. PPS have done a pretty good job over the last few years of trimming costs and dealing with what they've been given. It's not like education has been swimming in piles of cash to squander through the past decade of anti-education budget attitudes.

And really, you can make that ridiculous argument about any corporation. "as if my ___insert product here___ money is going to the workers". We all know nothing is more lopsided these day than giant corporations paying out the top. It's crazy to me how Americans are so quick to point fingers at government "waste" and ignore the far worse shenanigans going on in the private sector.

[Bong477]

This was to be expected with the large amount of successful appeals. They'll increase it again by the max 2% next year as well most likely.

[Bong477]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

If you read the article, they are getting $10 million less than they thought they would get because of the appeals to the reassessment. Since they were actually trying to be revenue neutral when setting the millage after the reassessment, I think this means that the $3 million dollar tax increase is actually a $4 million dollar tax cut still ($3 million increase in 2013 and 2014).

Taxes are being raised, not lowered. Raising taxes to offset an inaccurate budget projection is still a tax increase. The board would likely have raised it to cover the full amount if they could have done so easily but its limited to 2% without a referendum.