School Taxes

Here we go again. The latest figures are out and it looks like the area school taxes are on the rise again this year. Our idiotic governor Tom Corbett reluctantly signed the states fiscal budget which gave the schools a good idea of how much funding they will get for the year. "Slice and Dice" Corbett did increase funding to schools, but not as much as he promised. This sent the local school districts into a panic state since the funding was a bit slight. If you remember, Corbett "sliced and diced" the funding to schools when he took office which led to a hefty rise in school taxes. Now that it's an election year, Corbett did a turn about and threw out some money to try to bolster his failing campaign. Of course, its not enough so the taxpayers will now take on an average school tax increase of about 3%. Some districts are higher and of course some are lower.

 Leading the way with the largest increase is Northwest Area. They are whacking the residents a whopping 4.8%. In addition to whacking the people with a high tax increase, the school district will furlough 4 teachers and lay off another 2. Northwest area is in such financial disarray, they may be on the brink of being declared a distressed school district. It seems to me that they may need a better financial person steering that sinking ship. Coming in second is the Hazleton school district with a 3.8% increase followed by Wyoming Area at 3.2%. Believe it or not, Hanover Area will not be increasing their school taxes. Way to go Hanover!

The bottom line here is, how much more can "We The People" be taxed? Right now more than 33% of our hard earned pay is gone for taxes. What we get from this taxation also seems to be less and less. If you think about it, the state funding for our schools comes from taxes. On top of this, we have to pay a school tax. It's a double whammy to the old pocket book. I think it's time to evaluate these big union teacher salaries. It's time to trim down their health care to match what everyone else in the business world has. No more Cadillac of health care with no co-pays. Let's base pay raises on performance and not simply because they belong in the union. In some cases the teachers union breeds mediocrity which leads to poor education. Oh, by the way, to all you history teachers out there, Columbus did not discover America. Yes, we are still teaching that in some classrooms.