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So it won’t be as bad as it seemed.
The Dansville Board of Education adopted a tax rate increase of 4.46 percent Aug. 23, significantly lower than the 7.45 percent increase estimated in June.
The estimated 7.45 percent increase was the result of a contingency budget adopted by the board after a public vote failed. The public voted down a budget with a 7.92 percent tax increase.
After the district closed the books on the 2010-11 year, it showed an excess in the district’s fund balance of $501,000.
The Board of Education approved taking $210,000 from the excess balance and appropriating it to the tax levy; with the remaining $300,000 to fund the Employee Retirement System reserve for the 2012-13 year.
“The district will do everything in its power to stabilize the tax levy and preserve learning opportunities for students,” Superintendent Paul Alioto said in his office last week.
“I hope that property owners recognize that when finances permit us to mitigate the impact on taxpayers, that we will do so.”
He also said that the district intends to do a better job of predicting the fund balance earlier in the school year, and that if they had done so last year, “We could not have prevented the layoffs and the middle school from closing, but we could have prevented some of the heartburn around the tax levy.”
Under the new tax rate, homeowners in the district will pay about 51 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value, with the exception of Ossian homeowners, who will pay just less than $2 per thousand. This is due to Ossian’s equalization rate of 94 percent, and the other towns’ equalization rate of 100 percent.
Previous versions of this story contained errors regarding how the tax rate is determined for property within Dansville Central School District. The board adopted a budget in June and at that time estimated the effective tax rate. This version of the story has been updated to correct the errors.
So it won’t be as bad as it seemed.
The Dansville Board of Education adopted a tax rate increase of 4.46 percent Aug. 23, significantly lower than the 7.45 percent increase estimated in June.
The estimated 7.45 percent increase was the result of a contingency budget adopted by the board after a public vote failed. The public voted down a budget with a 7.92 percent tax increase.
After the district closed the books on the 2010-11 year, it showed an excess in the district’s fund balance of $501,000.
The Board of Education approved taking $210,000 from the excess balance and appropriating it to the tax levy; with the remaining $300,000 to fund the Employee Retirement System reserve for the 2012-13 year.
“The district will do everything in its power to stabilize the tax levy and preserve learning opportunities for students,” Superintendent Paul Alioto said in his office last week.
“I hope that property owners recognize that when finances permit us to mitigate the impact on taxpayers, that we will do so.”
He also said that the district intends to do a better job of predicting the fund balance earlier in the school year, and that if they had done so last year, “We could not have prevented the layoffs and the middle school from closing, but we could have prevented some of the heartburn around the tax levy.”
Under the new tax rate, homeowners in the district will pay about 51 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value, with the exception of Ossian homeowners, who will pay just less than $2 per thousand. This is due to Ossian’s equalization rate of 94 percent, and the other towns’ equalization rate of 100 percent.
Previous versions of this story contained errors regarding how the tax rate is determined for property within Dansville Central School District. The board adopted a budget in June and at that time estimated the effective tax rate. This version of the story has been updated to correct the errors.
