Pittsfield school officials propose 17 percent budget hike
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School officials in Pittsfield explained to voters why property taxes are expected to go up this year at a meeting Thursday evening at Pittsfield Town Hall. Cassandra Hotaling / Rutland Herald |
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By Cristina Kumka Staff Writer - Published: February 27, 2009
School officials in Pittsfield explained to voters Thursday why their property taxes are expected to shoot up this year — a school tax break, one that began at least 15 years ago, has come to an end.
The town's proposed school budget has increased by about 17 percent, or $138,063 this year, because the school district will now be obligated to pay its full share of administrative, early education and special education costs based on a formula that takes into account all of the town's 60 students — something the district hadn't been doing for more than a decade, school officials said.
For Pittsfield taxpayers, an unwritten "handshake agreement" they once had with the Windsor Northwest Supervisory Union Board to pay based only on the number of students who went to schools inside the union — only about 20 of all Pittsfield students — is no longer valid and taxes will increase because of it, according to Pittsfield School Board chairwoman Kristin Sperber and union leaders.
The town's school budget increasing from $778,986 to $917,049 this fiscal year means a 20 cent hike in the homestead tax rate, from an estimated $1.56 per $100 of assessed property value to $1.76, according to Sperber.
The nonresident rate is expected to jump from $1.73 to $1.85.
For at least the past 15 years, five other school districts in the union have been paying more money to cover Pittsfield's missing share, according to David Allen, the union's business manager.
"Nobody remembers why this happened 20 years ago," Allen said Thursday.
"The other towns, in essence, were subsidizing Pittsfield's special education costs and it made their towns' costs look abnormally high," he said.
Those towns — Bethel, Granville, Hancock, Rochester and Stockbridge — had to answer to the state for their rising costs and the Union School Board voted in December to cease the practice of giving Pittsfield a break.
"Now it's a very big deal with increasing costs for special education," Allen said.
The agreement was made around 1985, when Pittsfield opted out of a joint district with Stockbridge and adopted school choice, but there is no written record of it, school officials said.
Pittsfield's assessment will now be calculated the same way as the other towns, taking into account the town's total average daily membership of students, and taxpayers will be expected to pay their full share of special education and non-special education assessments.
This year, Pittsfield taxpayers are obligated to pay $71,515 more in assessments on top of roughly $37,000 more taxpayers will pay to send their students to out-of-district schools, according to information provided by Allen.
Union Superintendent Timothy Mock, who has led the union for the past five years, said Pittsfield was only paying one third of their entire assessment and should have been paying an additional $100,000 each year.
Allen, who has been the union's business manager for less than a year, brought the discrepancy to the attention of the Union Board late last year.
Sperber said Pittsfield had a good deal.
"Other people were carrying the weight of us," she said.
Pittsfield School Board member A.J. Ruben said taxpayers would now have to pay the town's "fair share" of costs.
"We're really trying hard to do the right thing," Ruben said.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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