Published: June 15, 2006 11:33 pm      

Portage schools avoid tax hike

A local school board has scrapped a tax hike, while another will continue to look for ways to balance its budget and avoid a tax increase.

In a surprise move, the Portage Area School Board on Wednesday approved a $10.9 million budget and voted against a 2-mill hike, an increase given a tentative OK in May.

Meanwhile, members of the Northern Cambria school board said Thursday they will continue to examine the proposed $14.4 million budget in hopes of finding enough cuts to avoid a planned 2-mill hike.

The newest member of the Portage board, Tyler Trimbath, who led the charge to keep the taxes un-changed, was elated about the 6-3 vote defeating the increase. The average homeowner would have paid about $40 more per year had the increase passed, according to the Cambria County Tax Assessment Office.

“I’m very pleased. We have a declining student population and many in the district just didn’t want a tax increase,” Trimbath said Thursday.

Recent enrollment has varied by only a couple students each year. But compared with 30 years ago, the overall number of elementary-middle school pupils has been cut in half, Superintendent Andrew Kittell said Thursday.

The 43.5-mill tax rate in the Portage district has remained unchanged for 11 years.

The $75,000 the hike would have generated was needed to cover the state-mandated increase to the employee-pension fund, among other things, district Business Manager Mike Kunko said.

Instead, the board plans to eliminate the post of assistant high school principal and move that person to the elementary school, where the principal is retiring.

“The best thing for the community is no tax increase,” Kittell said.

Board member Eric Gruss, who favored the hike, said the district is delaying the inevitable because eliminating the assistant principal post is a temporary move.

“I think the tax increase was necessary. We’ve run a deficit two years in a row,” he said.

Those deficits have been covered by dipping into the district’s $500,000 to $600,000 budgetary reserve fund, which Gruss views as fiscally unwise.

Meanwhile, the Northern Cambria board will act on its budget on June 27.

Director Donald Kline predicts taxes, last raised in 1992, will remain unchanged.

“I don’t see five votes for the increase,” he said Thursday.

But Director Brian Tibbott isn’t making any predictions. “We’re hoping we can avoid it,” Tibbott said.

One possible cost-saving option is providing early retirement incentives. As many as five teachers may step down, and not all the vacancies may be filled.

Former Director Dolly Sasway said higher taxes are needed to cover costs associated with the unbudgeted hiring of an assistant principal, full-time aides and coaches a few years ago.

“I would say they’re going to have to have a tax increase to stop the bleeding because they are taking money from the fund balance,” Sasway said.

Northern Cambria Superintendent Thomas Estep said a 2-mill increase would go toward repaying debt on the recently approved $13.7-million elementary-middle school renovation.

“I’m recommending a 2-mill tax increase because we chose to do the things which cost more,” he said.

Those additional items are air conditioning of the entire complex at a cost of $600,000 and $440,000 for a new gym.