Building renovations drive Kiski Area tax increase

Kiski Area School District residents will pay more in real estate taxes for the 2023-24 school year.

The board voted 8-0 to raise taxes by 5.37 mills, a 5.7% increase, for the district’s Westmoreland County communities and 2.19 mills, a 5.1% increase, for Parks Township, the district’s only Armstrong County community.

Board member Christine Heinle was absent.

The millage rates differ because of the difference in computing real estate assessments in each county but are evened out through the State Tax Equalization ratio applied to county assessments.

For a Parks resident with a property assessed at the Armstrong County average of $22,760, the increase raises the millage from 42.79 to 44.98, which amounts to an extra $59.31 per year on the tax bill.

In Westmoreland County, a person owning a property with the average assessment of $17,990 faces a millage rate rising from 93.56 mills or an additional $95.89 in taxes.

The driving element to the tax increase is the renovation project for the senior high school, according to district officials.

“If you think about the tax increase, that’s going almost 100% to the building,” Michael Lamb, the district’s financial officer, told the board at its May 15 meeting.

President Michelle Schmidt said after this week’s tax increase vote: “It’s not an easy decision, but we have to put it toward our building, which has been neglected for many years.”

The $65.8 million budget approved by the board is balanced, Schmidt said, but it was not done without some pain.

In outlining the budget, Lamb said the district slashed about $1.35 million to balance it. Those cuts included $405,000 in overtime wages, termination leave and temporary salaries; $404,000 in supplies; $251,000 in contracted services; and $145,000 in capital purchases.

He said the bulk of the district’s expenditures are fixed, including salaries, benefits, retirement contributions, transportation costs and debt service interest and principal, accounting for $56.7 million or 86% of all district expenditures.