Taxpayer brings up river dredge issue

Schools gang up on staph

<b>First Posted:</b> 12/8/2007<br><br>By Mark Guydish mguydish@www.timesleader.comEducation Reporter 


WILKES-BARRE &amp;ndash; If you listened closely, you may have heard brief grumblings at school board meetings in recent months: The flow of property tax &amp;ldquo;additionals&amp;rdquo; coming from the county &amp;ndash; notices of new or improved properties that bump assessed value, and taxes, up &amp;ndash; seems to have slowed. But &amp;ldquo;abatements&amp;rdquo; &amp;ndash; the lowering of assessed value, usually through owner appeal &amp;ndash; remain, well, unabated.
Yes, a problem has developed, said Luzerne County Director of Assessments Tony Alu, but it&amp;rsquo;s a glitch arising under a new system designed to make the property tax system fairer, and it will be fixed in the coming months.
Officials in several districts have voiced concerns. At Tuesday&amp;rsquo;s Northwest Area School Board meeting, member Charles Brace said he had heard complaints from district tax collectors regarding the pace of information from the county. Dallas Business Manager Grant Palfey had a similar concern. And Wilkes-Barre Area Business Manager Ralph Scoda said the abatements are piling up (and reducing district property tax income), but &amp;ldquo;the additionals, which we normally also receive, were not forthcoming from the county.&amp;rdquo;
It&amp;rsquo;s particularly grim news for Wilkes-Barre Area, Scoda said, because the district started out with total assessment down by 2.55 percent from November 2006 to November 2007 (by law, the county certifies assessments every year by Nov. 15, though additionals and abatements can come later). That translates into about $1.1 million less in property taxes, some of which should have been made up with additionals by now.
But Alu said the problem is temporary and arose from the County&amp;rsquo;s decision to start &amp;ldquo;pro-rating&amp;rdquo; property tax increases due to new construction. That is, instead of paying increased tax rates for 12 months when the construction was done in, say, April, they pay for only eight months.
That system works fine for the county and most municipalities, which operate on a calendar year, budgeting from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. But school districts budget on a fiscal year running from July 1 through June 30. So the same homeowner who improved property in April would be billed through December by the county, but only through June for the school district, before a new budget year started.
The problem, Alu said, is that the company that does the bills for the county currently can&amp;rsquo;t generate two separate bills like that. But he is meeting with company representatives Jan. 10 and is confident a solution can be found. In the meantime, districts can issue their own &amp;ldquo;interim&amp;rdquo; bills. 
So far, Alu said, the only Luzerne County district doing that is Hazleton Area. Palfey said he&amp;rsquo;s reluctant to issue interim bills because property owners could file appeals to the additionals, and the district wouldn&amp;rsquo;t know it. Theoretically, the district could be collecting money during the appeal process and be forced to return some of it if the appeal succeeds. 
Alu conceded the best system is to have the county do all the paperwork, and promised that&amp;rsquo;s what he hopes to accomplish.
 &amp;ldquo;The number one priority is to solve the mystery of how to give two additionals for the same property. I have every intention of finding a solution.&amp;rdquo;


Director of Assessments Tony Alu says glitch arising under system designed to make taxes fairer. 



    

Mark Guydish, a Times Leader staff writer, can be reached at 829-7161.

Official: Paperwork glitch will be fixed