Lehighton tax bills to be delivered by August
Real estate tax bills are expected to be in the hands of property owners in Lehighton Area School District by early August.
“Since we passed the budget at the very end of June, we went to the back of the line at the printers,” Patricia Denicola, Lehighton business administrator said during Monday night’s school board meeting.
Bills are expected to be delivered to the district with postage on them by the end of the month and will then be mailed to property owners.
Lehighton voted on June 27 to use a 1-mill property tax increase to help slice what was once a $4.5 million shortfall down to $2.5 million. The increase will add $59.41 to the average taxpayer’s bill.
Qualifying homestead/farmstead owners will see a $266 reduction on their tax bill.
“The timeline to get the 2 percent discount by paying early will be extended due to the delay in getting the bills printed,” Denicola said.
Taxing the annex building
In other Lehighton school district tax news, school board Director David Bradley on Monday requested the solicitor to look into whether or not the district should be sending a tax bill to Lehighton Borough for the annex building on North Third Street because “the borough rents space within it as a commercial opportunity.”
“By law, it’s taxable,” Bradley said. “They are using it in a non-tax exempt way. We have an unsustainable budget, yet we are not collecting a tax for a building we sold them to for I believe $1.”
District solicitor Eric Filer said the matter would take some research, but warned that generally, “public entities do not start fights with one another.”
Lehighton Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver also urged caution, noting the positive working relationship the two entities have had over the years.
“The borough does a lot for us and we have worked together on many different things,” Cleaver said. “We also have our differences, but in the scope of everything, we’ve had a positive working relationship and they have been very cooperative for years and years.”
Bradley called not taxing the building a 20-year mistake that cost the district around $800,000.
“I think we should have Eric get back to us on what the law says and next month we could decide how we want to proceed,” director Joy Beers said. “We have the choice to forgive it even if it is taxable, but let’s first find out the information.”
Officials in Carbon County’s tax assessment office said their office doesn’t have the right to change a property from exempt to taxable. Instead, the district, if so inclined, would need to take the matter before the county’s board of assessment appeals.
Carbon County itself does not currently tax the borough for the annex property.
Comments
They spin everything. To be clear, in my opinion, the LASD and the Lehighton Borough should BOTH SAVE the Solicitor waste and just read the law.
Like the Stop sign law, Speed Limit law, PLCB carry out limits law, and sales tax collections law this particular law is written in plain English, clear as day, and was already challenged in court. The municipality loses. The judge basically wrote that the municipality pays the tax if it is leasing to a private company and the building is not being used for municipal or public use. I will post a link and the actual verbiage. The Times News failed to include those details in the story, they were presented at the meeting.
And it is closer to $852,000 unless penalties are added for two decades of being scummy shorting the educational funds to the district. Not to mention and interest. I believe late fees are charged nearly 10% on our tax bill's. We need to fix that, lowering it to a lesser more reasonable rate next. Be patient, these stampers block almost all our commonsense stuff.
To waste money on enforcement of this law is ridiculous. The Lehighton Borough should read the law, concede, and support the education of our children.
Any lawyer that touches this, in my opinion, is immorally churning the taxpayers. Since a judge already ruled on nearly identical matters, to bill a client and not educate them to the outcome would be an unethical in my book. The case was concerning the tax on property leased by a municipality, even to a non profit. Watch the vultures take a simple verification of taxes using transparency, and turn it into their personal payday. Without a government of rubber stampers, and board or council would easily see, and correct the mistake. Shameless. Reminds me of Auditor General's reports on Susquehanna and Fairfield. There the solicitors were found to be, let's say, less than helpful to the proper use of educational funds.
Any attorney or Soliciitor using this law, or the RTKL as their opportunity to profit is pathetic. Ours solicitor is currently authorized by the rubber-stampers to get paid from educational funds to challenge the constitutionality of the RTKL law. WTH, rubber-stampers should stop using educational funds on absurdity. Directors swore to uphold the constitution's, not use funds meant for education to challenge the law. Leave that to some other deep pockets, like the teachers unions, lobbyists, or private sector. Nowhere in the PA School Code does it say these five can use money other than on educational benefits found in the code.
Mistakes like these should be surcharged to the individual directors. The tax payers are currently on the hook for all these mistakes of the five rubber stampers.
The five need to resign. (Yenser, Stern, Wentz, Spinelli, Holland).
Can't believe the article says millions are in dispute. Think of it like a store. The stakeholders (owners) hire the board (manager) to hire the clerks (Administration and staff). The manager listens to ths clerks to let the company store door open, register open and failed to oversee the transition from one manager to the next. Then when the drawer is short a couple million, consumed by the open cash drawer and no cost controls, the managers (the board) are asking the owners (stakeholders/taxpayer) to cover the loss, and permission to do it again next year. But, this time it will be 10% more.
Accountability comes from transparency, and the people having the guts to say, "I am as mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore. Then go to the polls and vote out all the ones that didn't apologize and resign.
Sincerely,
Citizen David F. Bradley Sr.
Hmm, is this a new printer or the same printer contract?
Why the massive tax increase if our balanced budget plan had a slight tax decrease?
Investigative journalist would ask so many more questions.
Where did they find the $2M originally 'missing'? Where are the details? Who checked the monthly reports? Why did the treasurer at the time, Andrew Yenser, neglect to do his duty as a director? Where is the rest of the 'missing' money?
If we only had lawful transparency, we are getting closer. I am seeking their resignations for neglecting their duty.
Sincerely,
Citizen David F. Bradley Sr.
Parents Resisting Increased District Evil.
As a district we need to:
Add moral governance
Add a reasonable time for handbook review
End warrantless searches
End tweeting demeaning tweets
Add Student rights
End restrictive graduation hurdles
End Special needs legal fights
End the failure of using State Standards
End the favoritism
Add more Bus safety, and busses.
End the failure to follow the School Code
End the Intimidation
Bring back smaller classrooms
End flipped classrooms
End Quiet lunches
End Selective enforcement
End tossing of School lunches into the trash
End Lack of veteran policy
Find the missing funds
End Lunch payment penalties
Add full legal transparency
End the failures to follow School Policy
Add a rotating PTO representative to the board
End abdication of board authority
End the Blind trust of the administration
End the waste of educational funds with the Solicitor.
End the baseline budgeting
Add the EOE policies
End the 'private' personnel meetings
I knew an old town
That swallowed a lie
I don't know why
They swallowed the lie
I guess they will cry
I knew an old town
That floated a bond
They floated the bond
To fix the lie
I don't know why
They swallowed that lie
I know they will cry
I know and old town
That built a new school
They thought it be cool to build a new school.
They built a new school
To consume the funds
They borrowed the funds to
Cover the lie
The created a lie I don't know why, but this town has begun to cry.
Debt piled high to cover the lie,
Upon our children and upto the sky.
This board keeps spending without a clue, the predictions of pain all came true.
Thank you for reading this far. Theatrics garner attention and sometimes we all need a good poem to open the conversations.
They started with a lie, and hid the truth. Transparency is coming, but slowly as they are blaming me and the other guy. I created a balanced budget with a slight tax decrease, it meets all the State requirements for this government be solvent.
Now, for the blunt truth. If we look at the district as a government of, by and for the people, we can meet the educational requirements without going insolvent. The path they are on is riddled with despair. A government can't actually go bankrupt, since they have taxpayers to pay for all their mistakes. The bond documents show these rubber-stampers were fools with our money. They pledged the full taxing authority of the government to the bond holders. The interest rates are escalating and the PSERS are crushing most about every district.
Purveyors of a peaceful reform we ask for their apology and resignation.
Let the wiser heads transparently make decisions with community oversight and approval. Together we can reform this back to a government of, by and for the people again. Rigid principles, and moral guidelines can navigate us to a sustainable community. The system is set up that the taxpayers control the board, the board controls the administration and the administration handles the day to day.
We have a real budget, with a slight tax decrease, but can not move forward while the government is controlled by these rubber stampers. The five that make up government gave their blind trust to the administration. They are blocking reforms with their block votes. Evil or stupid, the facts are the facts. And I say evil since we warned them repeatedly with facts upon facts.
Talk to your neighbors, talk to your friends. Unsustainable consumption is a hard for the corrupt to correct. However, it is easy for those with character willing to serve the public.
Contact me at dbradley@lehightongovt.org
I welcome your input.
Sincerely,
Citizen David F. Bradley Sr.
Dear Heathens,
Good afternoon. And yes I am very upset, the adjectives I chose should reflect my distain for your actions.
The State published paperwork that apparently shows the lot of you as lying heathens.
When I reviewed it, it was discovered that this board FAILED in their duty. They FAILED to protect our children and FAILED this community. I chose to write this letter and petition my government to change their ways.
When “Let’s verify before acting”, have been relentlessly requested, an “I told you so” just isn’t enough. So, I chose to further document your corruption with this letter.
Possibly it will aid others to find strength of character and not succumb to such evil. I am disappointed in the lot of you.
The rubber stamping, blind trusting shills have now been exposed as complete and bold face LIARS! A review of the district documents filed with the State shows just how much of a liar you are all willing to be.
Justice Brandeis once wrote
“about the wickedness of people shielding wrongdoers and passing them off (or at least allowing them to pass themselves off) as honest men.”
- Harvard Law review Warren Brandeis
I for one, will not shield, but expose, your wrongdoings. Liars are not honest men, and the wickedness of others in this district should not be shielded, by anyone. Transparency will come to the government of the LASD.
The district board lied. When government uses lies to raise taxes and protect the staff at the detriment of the students every citizen should get involved with the reform. Transparency was the tip of the spear exposing the corruption, waste and lies our government official, our neighbors perpetrated upon us. Pure evil in my book.
Sincerely,
Citizen David F. Bradley Sr.
Sincerely,
Citizen David F Bradley Sr.