I received the following e-mail from Jerry Thacker, People for Pennsylvania’s Future. ( If you are not familiar with the “Plan for Pennsylvania’s Future”, go to
http://www.commonwealthcaucus.org/plan.htm for details):

The October 24th Rally was a powerful statement to the politicians of Pennsylvania. While it was important, the fight has only just begun. 

Under the Commonwealth Caucus Plan for Pennsylvania’s Future, overworked, financially stressed families can have these benefits once the law is changed. 

We need your help today! We invite you - the grassroots supporters of People for Pennsylvania’s Future - to take a stand! It is time to fight back! 

Soon Pennsylvania’s politicians will have a chance to do what’s best for public and private schools as well as for all the families in our state.

On November 21st the Pennsylvania House of Representatives plans to vote on this critical tax reform. I’m asking you to do THREE things to help us win this battle.

1.  Call or write your State Representative and State Senator. Tell them you want them to support the Commonwealth Caucus Plan. If you do not know who your elected officials are, visit http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm
2.  Please send letters to the editor to your local daily and weekly papers in support of the plan. Also call local and national radio talk shows to let the listening audiences know what they can do to help get it passed.
3.  Finally, pass this letter on to everyone you know and ask them to join you in this effort. Remember the words of Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Please join us in encouraging citizens from all across the state in making our voices heard.

For the sake of our children, let’s stand up for their future. For more information please contact State Representative Sam Rohrer’s office at:

Reading Phone: (610) 775-5130 Harrisburg Phone: (717) 787-8550
Hours: M-F 9:00 - 4:30

i was watching the Pa channel the other night and the legislatures were discussing the sales tax issue.  a rep from allegheny county put forth a bunch of amendments to the bill and now there will be a 5 billion dollar short fall in the plan.  they added no tax on bottled water, food, funeral expenses, etc.  this thing will never fly unless they raise the sales tax rate to around 7% is a figure they said.

these reps found it amusing to trash the work of rep rohrer and others.

looks like the sales tax try was a waste of time, school tax is here to stay.

edited by: bikertrash, Nov 23, 2005 - 08:29 PM

What I have seen go on in the House and Senate the past few months is nothing short of disgusting. They have shown no care and concern for their constituents. All they are worried about is getting elected again in 2006 (the entire House is up for for reelection).

The problem is also with Rendell. He is pushing gambling as the cure-all. There is no guarantee that slot machines will produce the revenue needed for the miniscule relief they want to give us with it. Besides, it will be several years before that is in place.

I hope our reps enjoy their 12 day break while we suffer and try to figure out how to pay our taxes in the months to come.

They should all be tossed… we need people in there that care about us. People that will ignore partisian politics and will work for the common good of the people. 

I’m all for tossing all the bums out. I know if they pass anything at all, it’ll be some half-baked plan that reduces school taxes by a couple hundred. Well, that doesn’t do me much good, my house payment just went up $150/mo because of the assessment increase. Next year it’ll go up another $100 or more with the 27% school tax increase. Enough is enough. Throw the bums out :-x

i’ve also heard that there is the possibility of just taxes other than residences, sorry for spelling, but meaning they would do the sales tax and suppliment the difference by only taxing property that the owner doesn’t live in.  Like businesses, rental units, and luxury/vacation stuff.  but i don’t know how true this is.

the problem i can see though with this sales tax is the state decides who gets what.  we would get screwed all over again. a 34 million dollar budget really isn’t that large but picture trying to make due with 25 million and no way to suppliment the difference.  i can see it now 50 kids per class and text books from when i was in high school where vietnam is the most recent war.

we ‘re in a pickle and i think it ain’t gonna be sweet.

why am i a democrat???  

This problem goes beyond party affiliation. It does not matter what party you are. The problem is real and needs to be fixed. As far as funding is concerned, every school should get a fair shot but we know what will happen with Rendell in office - Philly will get all the cash.

I don’t have an answer on how to fund it, but the current system is failing. The idea behind a sales tax is good in many ways since it also collects from the border crossers and does not hurt those school districts like ours - the ones where the people have to shop in the neighboring school district. As long as you keep your business in the state, you help the system. We also get to collect on those transiting the state. I-83, 81, 78, 76, 95 and 79 are major truck routes and tourist routes.

Under the current system, the schools also take the property transfer tax. That would be something they could continue to collect and it would be local money. 

Following is an update on the status of the school property tax reform bills.

People for Pennsylvania’s Future

We received the following letter from Rep. Sam Rohrer and would like to pass it along to you!
******************

Dear Friend:

The special session on property taxes called by the governor in September has resulted in a mandated version of the already publicly rejected version of the governor’s gambling dependent Act 72 being adopted by the Senate in Senate Bill 30 and sent to the House as the Senate’s best solution to the school property tax problem.  Appropriately, on December 20, the House overwhelmingly rejected this plan due to its insufficiency and failure to respond to the needs of our taxpayers.

On this same day, the House debated and passed a significantly compromised plan by only a narrow margin.  Commonly referred to as the Scavello-Benninghoff plan, the legislation provides a minimal reduction of school property taxes by relying heavily on increased personal income taxes.  This bill now sits in the Senate where the Senate will need to respond in some fashion.  I opposed both the Senate proposal and the House proposal for primarily the same reason - both approaches totally avoid fixing the problems that have resulted in unbearable property tax burdens. In addition, neither proposal attempts to eliminate school property taxes.

However, it is important to step up and put this entire issue into perspective. First of all, do not view the fact that our proposal has not been voted out of the House as a defeat of our bills. This is a case of perhaps losing the battle --- but not the war. Bear in mind that we have not had final votes on our Plan. It has perhaps been wrongly reported that the final vote has come and gone with the Plan failing to pass but this is clearly not true. In reality, our leadership has successfully prevented a final vote on the bills in our Plan. The only bill (HB 39) to have a final vote was passed and sent to the Senate. It is not correct to say that the House would necessarily pass our Plan if given the opportunity but nor is it correct to say that the House has outright rejected the plan. In fact, we have not debated anything about the contents and merits of our Plan—only the amendments to some of the bills. Our own Republican leaders opposed every attempt we made to allow debate and a final vote on our other bills. Even last Tuesday night, our own Majority Leader and Speaker worked to avoid debate on the merits of HB 42 (which was actively on the House Voting Schedule and therefore demanded a final vote).  If you will note, both the House and Senate Leadership successfully avoided voting on any legislation that would eliminate the school property tax. In my opinion, this was no accident. Their goal has been and remains to make certain that nothing other than the elusive gambling revenues comprise the majority amount of any property tax relief effort. The original gambling cartel’s strategy linked property tax “relief” to expanded gambling. They cannot afford to decouple these two elements o! r they risk the rejection of the current gambling law and certainly forego any motivation to further expand gambling through full blown casinos and table games—which has been their clearly stated goal.

It is important to note that part of the problem with the Scavello-Benninghoff approach and literally every other concept is that they are forced into a fixed dollar amount of reduction vs. a percentage reduction as we do. The reason is that unless you eliminate the tax, you are forced by law to reduce taxes under the Homestead Exemption provision which was established as a fixed dollar amount and only up to 50% of the median assessed property value. There are many, many problems with this. Part of the problem is that even under the Scavello compromise, where he states that people will receive a 40% reduction, a 40% reduction is not what they will get. Most will get far less despite having been led to believe that they would be receiving the full 40%. Because he also relies on a larger share of income tax revenue than sales tax, many homeowners will literally pay more total tax after enactment if it occurs than they currently pay.  As you well know, this is in stark contrast to our Plan.

We should all remain confident that anything short of fixing the problem will only allow the spending, borrowing, etc. to increase.  Property taxes will continue to go up and will essentially guarantee that we will see scores of districts within the next few years sinking into financial distress. All this will force greater demand for fixing the problem—however, the greater the problem the more difficult a solution—which is exactly what we have warned.

The bottom line is that, ultimately, the homeowners and taxpayers of this state will be the ones who determine which plan they desire to provide property tax reform. They should continue to weigh in and demand that nothing short of elimination will suffice. The General Assembly simply cannot shove this issue off any longer to some future elected body and tell the taxpayer that there is nothing we can do.

We are into high stakes. We cannot and will not roll over any longer. For the sakes of our homes, our families, and our Commonwealth, we cannot.


Have a Merry Christmas!

Rep. Sam Rohrer

3130 Pricetown Road ♦ Fleetwood, PA 19522 ♦ 610-929-8800 ♦ 610-929-8821 FAX

Thanks for the information on the various plans..  I have been watching the debate as much as possible on PCN.  The one topic that I have not seen much discussion on is the required referendum if the tax increase was above a certain index as part of Act 72.  Essentially, if the board raised taxes above an inflation index, it would go to the people on a referendum with an up or down vote.  A very powerful tool for the taxpayer, which is my guess as to the real reason why Act 72 was rejected by so many school districts.  Does anyone know which (if any) of the bills contain this?

I know the South Eastern School Board opted out of Act 72 because they feared taxpayers would not vote for tax increases on referendum.  From what I’ve read, most of the pending bills include some assertion that gaming revenue would also be used to reduce property taxes.  An article from the Post-Gazette.com (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05356/626351.stm) lists the main elements being discussed by our legislators, which include “Enacting a ‘back-end referendum’ in which voters in each school district could vote on any school budget that surpassed the rate of inflation.”

Although I agree referendum is a powerful tool for the taxpayer, Act 72 in itself would not provide much relief to us in the way of school property taxes - a few hundred dollars at best.  Let’s hope our legislators are as diligent in providing REAL property tax relief to us as they were in voting themselves their now-defunct pay raise.

I agree, although Act 72 should have been passed as part of a larger effort shift the tax burden from “wealth taxes” to consumption taxes.  Simply opposing it because it would not have provided all the relief doesn’t make sense to me.  Act 72 and the Plan for Pa could be enacted in parallel, furthering relief to the property owner.  By opposing Act 72, money available to relieve skyrocketing tax bills was left on the table by our school board.  And they raised taxes 27%.  And there was the re-assessment.  Either way, immediate accountability to the tax base should be included if any plan is to be successful.  Otherwise, what insurance due we have that any taxing authority with be a frugal steward of the peoples money?

Did anyone see the article on what the school board wants to do next? Now they are talking about a new stadium for the HS. Ann Wilson says “A stadium would really increase school spirit”. Dick Wilson says “A new stadium is needed at the school”. Of course this stadium will have all the best accessories; lights, scoreboard, stands, bathrooms, and possibly AstroTurf. What is wrong with these people? Haven’t we suffered enough with the tax increases lately? They certainly don’t know the difference between want and need. Oh yeah, lets hit the taxpayers up once again, we have to keep that school spirit going. The stadium will be discussed at the Jan 19. school board meeting. But one thing I’ve learned about politicians is once they bring up the subject of building a stadium, any stadium, it will get done one way or another regardless of public apposition.

Weren’t they just belly aching about how the school is too small?  A new stadium isn’t going to take care of that problem.  A building with more classrooms might be a more practical use of all that money.  For the amount of money we pay in school taxes, you’d think we’d be #1 in the US for education.

As far as I know, the Booster club is going to pay for the stadium with money from fundraisers. HTH.

To see how the education of our children has changed, go to http://skyways.lib.ks.us/kansas/genweb/ottawa/exam.html.  (This is the Salina County, Kansas Library website).  The web page is supposedly the 8th grade graduation exam from 1895. 

I love #9 under “Rules for Teachers”:  “The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.” Something like that would surely cut our taxes.  LOL

While the Boosters *might* pay for the stadium (I do not have this confirmed), who is going to end up paying to maintain it?

It is the same story all over - every school is trying to build a showcase when their funds are slipping… Central York High School is a good example. Kennard-Dale is another example. They go for sex appeal over function. When they built the old middle school back in 1975, they did the same thing. It looked great, but could not be expanded.

The State needs to get involved in this more… school boards need to be controlled better. I am all for eliminating property tax, moving to a sales tax. Move school funding to a per capita basis, use better projections for growth. Make school boards accountable to the people.

The State legislature needs a shakeup if this is ever going to happen. They are getting no where with property tax reform.

I vote for getting rid of 70 million little school districts and having the counties control the school systems.  Not that the county gov’t isn’t as morally bankrupt or irresponsible, but at least it puts it all under one heading.  Just my 2 cents