EDUCATION Hermitage schools raise tax 4.5 mills

The average residential tax bill will jump about $124 .
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- Anton Spreitzer didn't want the Hermitage School Board to raise his property taxes 4.5 mills.
Spreitzer, a Sharon Steel retiree living on Maple Drive, attended Monday's school board meeting to point out that elderly residents have no money to pay additional taxes.
"You people have to ... squeeze [spending] down," he told the board, adding that he told his wife they might sell their house and move into a trailer or shack to get relief from taxes.
Blame the state
Board officials and school administrators told Spreitzer that his comments should be directed to the state, which makes educational mandates and fails to provide the funding.
The state is supposed to pick up 50 percent of the cost of education but is covering only 34 percent of the Hermitage budget, said Superintendent Karen Ionta.
That's about $7.3 million in a $22.3 million budget.
Spreitzer said that, when faced with growing expenses, he has to find a way to pay for them out of his fixed income, and schools should do the same. Ionta said the district has made cuts.
She said she was faced with a $1.9 million revenue shortfall when she began working on the 2004-05 spending plan and that was cut to just under $1 million before the budget came up for a final vote Monday.
Job cuts
The school board cut 11 staff positions, nine of them teachers, mostly through attrition, she said. One teaching aide was furloughed, and an attendance clerk's position was eliminated. The $22,496,900 spending plan calls for a 4.5-mill property tax increase, raising the total millage to 55.25.
That's on top of a 3.75-mill increase in 2002-03 and a 4-mill increase in 2003-04.
One mill costs the average residential taxpayer about $27.50 a year and 4.5 mills will cost about $124 more.
For and against
Directors Gene Martuccio, Timothy Ruffo, Raymond Slovesko, Matthew DeJulia, Victor Ellenberger and Dr. Morren Greenburg voted for the budget, but Laurie Biblis, Timothy Kizak and Jane Matusick cast dissenting votes.
All three said the tax increase is too high.
"I think we could do better. Enough with the taxes," Biblis said.
"We need to be more frugal," Matusick said.
Kizak said he's been listening to many people who are on fixed incomes, and raising taxes would be detrimental.
That 4.5-mill raise would have been a 13.5-mill tax increase before Mercer County changed its property tax ratio from 33.3 to 100 percent in 2002, thereby tripling the value of one mill.
The budget shows that, overall, employee salary costs are down by about $100,000, but that could change as the district is negotiating contracts with both teachers and nonteaching staff.
Business Manager Monique Barber said the cost of employee benefits will rise $200,000 and the debt service on previous bond issues will go up the same amount.
Wage tax revenues will drop by about $50,000, based on more accurate projections, she said.
Tapping account
The district tapped its fund balance (a savings account for school districts) for about $400,000 over the past two years to balance its budgets but is to put $114,000 back into that account in 2004-05.
"We really tried to hold the line," Ionta said, adding that the district must maintain the educational quality of its programs.