Catasauqua School Board, 6/11/08
For context, Catasauqua is a small school district on the Lehigh/Northampton border which some believe could be consolidated with the Northampton School District. They built a palatial high school in 2005, the location of this meeting.
Soaring gas prices fuel Catasauqua Area budget hike; property tax to rise 4.28%
By Chris Reber Of The Morning Call
June 13, 2008
The Catasauqua Area School Board on Wednesday adopted the 2008-09 budget that includes a 4.28 percent property tax increase.
The new spending plan passed by 6-2 vote. Board members Sally J. Reiss and Treasurer Robert M. Levine voted in dissent. Board member Patricia J. Snyder was absent.
The $25.2 million budget includes about $1.75 million in new spending and a property tax increase of 1.99 mills, raising the district’s millage rate to 48.56 mills. The tax bill on a home assessed at $50,000 would rise $99.50 to $2,428.
Board member Mary Alice Hartranft voted to adopt the budget, but not without voicing her concerns. She said the district’s financial woes were the result of the district’s new high school building in Allen Township, which opened in 2005.
”It’s here, and we have to take care of it,” Hartranft said, ”so I’m voting yes.”
Increased fuel prices led to the district approving a larger budget than originally anticipated. The board had originally proposed a $25.1 million budget, with a property tax increase of 3.7 percent.
Superintendent Robert Spengler said an additional 0.27-mill increase is tied directly to higher fuel costs since the budget’s proposal. Any remaining money from the increase, he said, would go directly into the district’s fund balance for 2009-10.
Because of a shaky financial situation, the district has raised taxes each year since 2006. In that year, the state Supreme Court ruled that portions of the Lehigh Valley International Airport located in the Catasauqua School District are tax exempt land.
Spengler said that the airport would have provided $355,000 in additional tax revenue this year.
The court also ruled that the district owed the airport $1.3 million in taxes already paid. The 2008-09 budget contains $156,000 for the airport.
Spengler said the board had resolved to not violate Act 1’s regulations for tax increases. In 2007, the district’s proposed tax increase violated state benchmarks. But the district applied for exemptions to prevent a referendum on the tax increase.
chris.reber@mcall.com
610-820-6586
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Chris Reber 
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