$27M Settlement Approved In Lower Merion School District Tax Suit

LOWER MERION TOWNSHIP, PA — The Lower Merion School District will pay out a major settlement to residents who lived in the district in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and/or 2021.

Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Judge Richard Haaz recently approved the settlement, according to Law.com.

The settlement brings the end of a six-year legal saga led by attorney Arthur Wolk who represented various plaintiffs, all of who were taxpayers in the district, who claimed the district unjustly and unnecessarily raised property taxes.

With the settlement approved, the district is paying back $15 million to taxpayers who owned real property in the District and who paid school real property taxes in the years mentioned above.

According to LMSDBudgetSettlement.com, the amount each taxpayer receives will be proportional to the amount of school taxes that taxpayer paid.

"The total amount of school taxes each taxpayer paid from 2016 through 2021 will be calculated as a percentage of the total amount of school taxes the District received from 2016 through 2021, and that percentage will be multiplied by $15 million to identify the amount each taxpayer will receive," the website reads.

Additionally, the district will credit $4 million per year in the tax bills that will be sent in 2023, 2024, and 2025, and will reduce the school tax millage rate to 31.2045 for the 2022-2023 fiscal year.

"While I am very happy for all of us that we were able to make some good law on abusive taxation, we must be ever vigilant to make certain both the school district and the township’s budgets are transparent, honest and most important necessary," Wolk told Patch.

He called the suit "unnecessarily arduous, abusive and insulting."

"It took a courageous Judge, Joseph Smyth, to enjoin the LMSD and several panels of judges on the Commonwealth Court to recognize the importance of this case to Pennsylvania taxpayers who have been abused by school districts and township taxation for decades," he said. "I am grateful for the opportunity to give back to my community and to create some law that will make a positive change to taxation practices in Pennsylvania."

"The board and administration believe that the best interests of the district’s students and taxpayers have been served by bringing the ongoing litigation to a conclusion, allowing the district to focus on its primary mission of providing excellent educational opportunities to the children of Lower Merion and Narberth," said attorney Chanda Miller, who represented the district in the suit.

District residents who believe they are entitled to funds in the settlement should go online here.