Centennial Schools Raise Property Taxes

Last night (June 11th, 2019), Centennial School District voted to increase real estate taxes 2.3%.

While this has been the smallest annual increase since the Recession, it does mean residents will be paying still more this year. According to James Boyle Jr from the Warminster Live, this will create an average increase of $86 per household.

There are a few reasons for this increase and I will list them briefly for you. If you would like to learn more, please watch the School Board meeting from last night. The primary source for my information is the video recording of that Centennial School Board meeting which can be found here. The video available is public record and does not reflect my opinions in any way.

Cost Reasons:

Over the past 5 years, total costs for Centennial School District have increased ~17%. Over the past 15 years, the increase has been nearly 58%. While there are a lot of reasons for that increase, here are our top 3 since the 2015-2016 school year.

1) "Out of District Tuition" - This includes costs paid to charter and other schools for students who do not attend Centennial Schools. These costs have increased about 85%.

2) Special Education - As Centennial Schools are determined to meet the special education needs of our students, so special education budgeting has increased for a total of 47%.

3) Supplies, Books, Software, & Equipment - Since Centennial is also focused on providing quality education as well as maintaining our level of education, the district has increased spending ehre and costs have increased 43%.

Out of District Tuition payments are relatively beyond the control of our School Board. Investing more into special education and the tools available to students are certainly noble sources for our tax dollars. However, the Centennial Schools budgets have been increasing consistently and residents do continually pay more in real estate taxes. Among those reasons, pension costs and debt payments are also two big ones. As you reach out to your board members, be sure to ask about long term financial plans the board can offer to keep real estate taxes reasonable and follow up by sharing that with others!

This article was written by Sean M. Godwin. Feel free to contact me with any local articles you think should be covered. Please, if there is any inaccuracy in this article or any of my articles, contact me immediately at seangodwin007@gmail.com