About 15 years ago the legislature put an 8% ceiling on accumulated surplus balances to prevent schools with enormous fund balances from raising property taxes. They got creative and got around the rule by categorizing any above 8% surplus to a new nebulous category- “assigned.’ Nothing more than a slush fund… Rep. Bernstein pointed this out recently when he reported the total fund balances of Butler and Lawrence County SD’s. Seneca Valley School Districe is reported to have a 41 million dollar fund balance . They still raised my property taxes by 5.5 mills this year. Slippery Rock School District seems to have done the same thing.
Why are some school Superintendents so desperate to keep raising our taxes? Why don’t they focus on the lousy job many of their teachers are doing in Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic?
There’s no money in that! Only better-educated students. Wht does YOUR School District do?