Fox Chapel Parents Group

Tax Study Committee Meeting

The committee met this evening and voted to make the following recommendation to the school board - putting the option to raise the EIT .7% on the ballot in spring.

While there was some discussion on PIT being more fair but certainly more volitile, the board did unanimously agree to submit the EIT. One member was clear in that if PIT was worked out by either the state or other districts before referendum, that he would like to consider following suit.

The board will present their recommendation to the school board at their next meeting Monday the 4th at 7:00pm in the LGI room. There will be copies of their formal recommendation for all attendees.

Fox Chapel Parents Group

Act 1, “Taxpayer Relief Act” was enacted June of 2006. Designated as a property tax reduction, it is in fact a tax shift. Tax “help” from gaming money is not a factor for our district at this point, because the law states that a reserve fund of $400 million must be established before any money can be disseminated to the different districts in their qualifying amounts. This law changes district funding in a way that could negatively affect our public schools.

On the May ballot, we will be asked if we want to lower property taxes by either implementing a Personal Income Tax or increasing our Earned Income Tax. The public hearing will illustrate the differences in these two taxes and how each one will affect the taxpaying community. If the referendum fails, we will keep our current property tax structure.

To protect the future of our schools in this district, we need to ensure stability. Only by preserving the funding for our district can we maintain our property values. It’s important to recognize that elementary students will have the longest exposure to the effects of this law on our local education.

Things to consider at the meeting: how do we keep the bulk of our revenue in the most stable, most easily collected and most predictable form that will allow us to maintain revenue for our district? Who benefits from this tax and who does not?

Welcome New Visitors

This blog has been created to exchange ideas among parents in the Fox Chapel School District who are concerned about issues surrounding Act 1 and the local tax study commission. For further information, please visit the links on the right side of the blog home page.

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Please tell other interested parties to visit this blog at www.fcparents.blogspot.com. Thanks!

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act 1 timeline

I just found this. http://www.pde.state.pa.us/proptax/lib/proptax/Timeline_2006-07.pdf

it goes over every deadline that the school board needs to meet under the Act.

Catherine Nelson will be accessible to this group re Act 1

Thanks to Kristy Rogers for noting that Catherine Nelson, local Tax Study Commision member, is an O'Hara mom. Catherine was glad to hear of our interest and is kindly offering to help answer any questions we come up with in advance of the public hearing Nov. 20.
She noted that there will be no further TSC meetings before the hearing, but can help clarify issues and facilitate communication with the committee.
She will be joining this blog, and ,while not available to come to the Saturday meeting, will address the questions we generate (we can email her that afternoon and publish the responses here).

We will be trying to share this site with other district families, hopefully through their PTO's, in the coming days. We hope to spread the word widely within the O'Hara community, too. Dr. Stephens is campaigning among the schools to encourage involvement and awareness of Act 1 and the unavoidable changes in local funding sources for all the schools in the Fox Chapel district.


PLEASE DO NOTE THAT THIS SITE IS NOW EXCLUSIVELY DEVOTED TO ACT 1 ISSUES AND HENCE IS DISTRICT-WIDE. PLEASE DO SHARE! pw

Post from Dave Esch

Dave Esch left this comment yesterday but I wasn't sure if anyone had seen it. -- KZU

Just a quick word of thanks to Penny and Kristen for setting this up!

I've had a look at some of the links, and it seems the timetable for our responses/input to the Tax group is quite tight. I'm just getting up to speed on the issues (thanks again to Penny), but it struck me that our input at the meeting on the 20th could possibly take the form of a letter, signed by the participants here. Perhaps someone who feels they have a solid grip on the issues could set those out in a draft, which could stimulate discussion/comment.

Any takers?

Dave

Members of the FC Tax Study Commission

Here's the list of district residents who were appointed by the school board to the Tax Study Commission: Lee Bellmer, Richard Meyer, Catherine Nelson, Arthur Scully, and Joel Weinstein.

nov 6 meeting

The handful of parents on Nov. 6 spent the majority of time discussing aspects of Act 1, though we also agreed to focus on O'Hara's immediate material needs (lighting, expanded restrooms and handwashing stations) and try to better define the personnel/staff discrepancies that may exist relative to the large population of O'Hara (ie, noontime monitors, special education, English as a Second Language), which requires that more information be gathered.

Watch this site for further links to useful Act 1 sites, which will also be emailed to parents on the list (duplicating this site) until everyone has access to the site and is comfortable using it.

We also decided to approach the Herald to make sure they are publicizing the public meeting on Nov. 20, and to perhaps have pertinent information about the law and tax review included.

We will be asking the District Forum tomorrow (Wed) specifically how the public may interact further with the tax study commission and the board AFTER the public hearing and before the final recommendation is made by the commission to the board in early December. Also, we would like the administration to clarify how the board and commission will be publicizing the process and recommendation. (It is clear that some Pa. commissions have publicized their meetings and opened their deliberations to the public, but I am not clear how this is being done here.)

If you have any other questions we need to ask tomorrow, let us know--I'll check my email jsut before leaving for any messages. Or, call me on cell 412-913-4859 up till 9 a.m.

The meeting on Saturday will be at our house, 309 Timber Court, at 1 pm; hopefully will be around an hour. PW

Meeting notice

There will be a meeting Monday Nov 6 at O'Hara, in the
cafeteria/commons area at or before 9 am (following
dropoff....). I'll bring coffee and the list of
preliminary concerns, as well as a few more copies of
the Act 1 handout from the superintendent, and we'll
go from there. Kristy and I will be going to District
Forum on the 8th, and hope more of you can make it to
get a bigger picture of who's who in the district and
perhaps meet some of the parents from the other
schools.

There will be a second meeting for the parents who
can't easily make it during the week on Sat Nov 11,
probably at 12:30 and probably at our house (about a 3
minute drive from school) and with a sitter who can
supervise any kids you'd like to bring and play with
our kids (3rd and K) in the basement. If it's critical
for you to meet at 12:30 vs 1 pm or vice versa,
please let me know--I only have 4 or 5 names for the
weekend meeting and want it to be as convenient as
possible. Hopefully, the next time we meet on a
weekend, it will be on the early or late part of the
day so as not to interfere with family outings.

After each of these meetings, we'll post notes for
those of you who can't make it.

On the right side of this blog are the sites with information (and
spin!) on Act 1. Please try to get to the Nov. 20
public hearing with the local tax study commission, as
it is the only public meeting required before
recommendations are made to the FC board on tax
policies that will greatly affect us and our kids
throughout the district. If you find other sites,
please post them to Kristy or me so we can post them here.

Penny Williams

Introduction

This blog has been created to exchange ideas among parents in the Fox Chapel School District who are concerned about issues of space, specifically at O'Hara Elementary, and issues surrounding Act 1 and the local tax study commission.