LEWISBURG – Taxes are going up for residents in the Lewisburg Area School District. The school board passed their final 2016-2017 budget of $33 million with a property tax increase of 2.29 %.
At their meeting Thursday night superintendent Mark DiRocco explained the factors behind the budget increase saying, “There were two main drivers, as always, has been the pension crisis and it continues to escalate. This year it’s up over 30% of salary, now we do get half that money back from the state, but still it’s a huge increase for us because we do have to pay that all up front. That was a considerable increase of funds, and then health care really shot up.”
The board has also set aside a contingency of $325,000 which the district will need to dip into if the state budget is delayed this year like it was last year says DiRocco, “We’ve been fortunate over the last few years because our real estate revenue and our earned income tax revenue that can typically carry us through to about February. This last year it went deep into March early April before they really passed the budget.”
The district had a tax increase cap of 2.8%. With the 2.29% increase the real estate millage has increased 38 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value. (Sarah Benek)