Octorara Cited In Inquirer Article

Octorara was cited in this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer, along with several other Delaware Valley school districts, for raising taxes beyond the rate of inflation over the past several years.

Here's the first third of the article:

Pennsylvania considers giving voters more say on school budgets

By Dan Hardy

Inquirer Staff Writer

Since 2006, Pennsylvanians have been able to vote on proposed school-tax increases that exceed a state-set education inflation rate.

That might surprise those who have watched their taxes go up well beyond that rate year after year but who have never been asked to vote on them.

That's because the law also allows tax hikes for certain spending categories without voter approval.

Now, with the support of the Corbett administration, Republicans in the state House and Senate have introduced bills that would remove those exceptions and require all proposed tax increases above the education inflation rate to be placed on the ballot.

Rep. Seth Grove (R., York), who introduced the House bill, said he was determined to close the "Grand Canyon-size loophole."

Since 2007, when the law was expanded to include all districts except Philadelphia, more than 2,000 school budgets have been enacted statewide, but only 11 proposed school-tax increases or tax hikes for specific projects have been put up for a vote. All but one were defeated.

There has been just one referendum on a budget tax increase in the Philadelphia area's 63 districts. In four of the last five years, at least a third of school-tax increases in the area have exceeded the education inflation rate.

Some districts - Cheltenham, Haverford, Lower Merion, and Lower Moreland - have never passed a budget with an increase below the inflation rate, using the spending exceptions to bypass referendums. Only 11 area districts stayed below the rate every year.

Others - Bristol Borough, Centennial, Octorara, and Upper Dublin among them - used exceptions that allowed them to raise taxes during the last five years that averaged more than twice the 3 percent rate of education inflation.

Ending the exceptions would lead to a dramatic change in the way school budgets are decided. Supporters see the legislation as a way to control spending by forcing school boards to justify tax increases to voters.

Read the entire article here.