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Preliminary EA School Budget Includes Tax Increase
Property rate would increase just over 1 mill; first since 2010-11
By T.J. Martin
The Tube City Almanac
May 30, 2024
Posted in: East McKeesport News, North Versailles Twp. News, Wilmerding News
East Allegheny School District property owners could see their first property tax increase in more than a decade.
The school board has approved a preliminary 2024-25 budget containing a mileage tax increase of just over 1.05 mills. School board members Tisha Thomas and Merle Pusey voted against the preliminary budget and Robert Trout was absent.
The preliminary budget must be voted on at next month’s school board meeting.
Director of Fiscal Services Toni Valicenti said the state dictates a maximum millage increase that every district can impose and the proposed increase in East Allegheny is half of the maximum allowed by the state.
If approved in the final budget, the millage increase, assuming a collection rate of 85 percent, will generate an additional $518,416. The budget projects total revenues of $45,996,543 and total expenditures of $47,008,977. Expenditures in the 2023-24 budget are $44,156,782.
“Our revenues are flat at best,” Valicenti told the board prior to the vote.
The district currently has a deficit of more than $5 million.
If approved, the millage rate in the district will increase from 26.9722 mills to 28.024 mills. Valicenti said a home with an assessed value of $100,000, currently taxed at $2,697, would see an increase of roughly $117.
Real estate taxes in the district were last raised in 2010-2011 by one mill.
Valicenti said after a preliminary budget is approved, state law allows a school board to lower any proposed tax increase in the final budget but not raise the tax increase.
T.J. Martin is a freelance writer from Trafford whose work has also appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Irwin Standard Observer.
Originally published May 30, 2024.
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