Maximum Tax Increase Now 4.24 Percent, UDSD Says

When the Upper Dublin School District in December, board members revealed that the highest possible tax increase to local residents would be 4.47 percent. In what is surely a development few will take issue with, the board announced that number will now be reduced to 4.24 percent at Monday's legislative meeting.

"When we filed for exceptions, we found out that there was a slight change in the calculations, which resulted in a slightly lower potential maximum tax increase," said board member Art Levinowitz.

Tax increases are not arbitrarily created by the school district. Since the inception of the Act 1 Index in 2006, the commonwealth dictates by how much each district across the state can raise taxes, with the figure sitting at 1.71 percent for 2012-13. Districts can then apply for "exceptions" for special education expenditures and PSERS, a state retirement program, or go out for a referendum, such as UDSD did to fund the construction of the new high school.

Levinowitz said that while the district originally calculated it could receive exceptions of 1.45 for special education and 1.32 for PSERS, those numbers were revised to 1.40 and 1.14, respectively. The board will focus heavily on the budget in March, with two special sessions dedicated solely to discussion of the budget, board members said.

Board approves EnerNOC agreement unanimously

At last week's work session, the board on entering into an agreement with EnerNOC to curb its energy usage during "peak events," in exchange for an estimated $113,000 over the next three years.

The board unanimously approved a motion to enter into the agreement at Monday's legislative session, after having the district solicitor review the document over the past week.

Under the agreement, the district will be asked to shut off nearly all power in all school buildings, with the exception of Jarrettown and Thomas Fitzwater Elementary Schools, during high-demand days, such as when the temperature tops 100 degrees. An ARAMARK energy engineer told the board that these "events" generally occur 0-2 times a year between June and September, and that the district could choose not to shut off power, without penalty, should the event occur during a school day.

District could lose $50,000 a year due to tax collection fee

The district could be facing an annual charge of $40,000 to $50,000, should a current decision by the county tax claim bureau to collect a five percent fee on delinquent taxes stand. According to district solicitor Ken Roos, the office has reversed its stance on collecting the five percent fee, even though the district's delinquent taxes are instead collected by Portnoff Law Associates, and not the county.

"The district is one of several Montgomery County political subdivisions that uses Portnoff Law Associates to collect its delinquent real estate taxes," said Roos. "The tax claim bureau has historically waved their statutory entitlement to five percent of the delinquent real estate taxes that Portnoff collects. Unfortunately, with the installation of new county treasurer [Jason Salus] they appear to be reversing that practice… and they are now going to insist on collecting the five percent."

Roos said that the district, Portnoff, and other county entities are going to meet with the tax office to ask that they not collect the five percent. In addition, Roos said that the state house finance committee saw a proposal on house bill 1877 on Monday, which would eliminate the bureau's entitlement to the five percent in the event that a third party vendor collects the delinquent taxes.

"We're working… to try and persuade [the tax claim office] not to impose this five percent," said Roos. "They don't actually do anything to get the money, which is why we think it's fair and equitable to do that."

District launches new website, social media pages

School administrators also announced the launch of the new district website and the creation of Facebook and Twitter accounts.

‘The [website] has a new look and improved functionality, so if you haven’t seen it take a look,” said board member Joan Ludwig, who added that technology director Stephanie Hultquist and executive assistant to the superintendent Katie Braun worked on the upgrades.