Pittsburgh Public Schools officials approve 2026 budget with 2% tax hike

The Pittsburgh Public Schools board Wednesday evening passed a 2026 budget that includes a 2% tax hike.

The $731.3 million budget passed unanimously.

However, the board voted 6-3 on the tax rate, with School Directors Dwayne Barker, Tawana Cook Purnell and board Vice President Tracey Reed dissenting.

The district’s tax rate is going up from 10.25 mills to 10.457 mills. The increase is expected to generate about $3.4 million for the district.

The tax hike is half of the 4% hike board members were considering earlier this month. That increase was the highest permitted by the state’s Act 1 index.

However, district Chief Financial Officer Ronald Joseph said the school district received new information from the county this week that showed the district’s millage calculations would create an excess of revenue and violate state law.

He said the district can’t hand out a property reduction that is greater than 50% of the median household value of a Homestead property, which was stated at $88,100.

“State law states that if we have an excess, we can do two things: lower the millage rate for all properties or lower the earned income tax,” Joseph said. “We opted to lower the millage rate, and seeing we were in an event where we were going to raise taxes, we didn’t raise them by as much.”

The reduced tax hike makes the budget “revenue neutral” and in compliance with the law, Joseph said.

The median property assessed value in the school district was reported to be at about $73,000. Such a property owner would pay about $13 more in real estate taxes next year as a result of the rate hike.

Even with the tax hike, district officials project about a $5.7 million operating deficit next year.

Board President Gene Walker said a tax increase was not ideal, but necessary.

“While a tax increase isn’t ideal in any circumstance, the fact that we were able to do what we what we needed to do tonight and lessen the impact on everyday Pittsburghers is a good thing,” he said after the meeting.

District officials earlier this year said the hike was needed to cover rising transportation, salary and benefits costs and offset revenue losses due to property reassessments.

The deficit was projected to be between $12 million to $13 million without a rate hike. PPS last raised taxes in 2022.

Reed said her vote against the rate hike was inspired, in part, by the board’s failure to move forward with a consolidation called the “Future-Ready” plan.

It called for the closure of the Student Achievement Center (Baxter School); Friendship; Schiller, Manchester; Fulton; McKelvy (Miller PreK-5); Woolslair; Spring Hill and Morrow.

Grade structures would have been reconfigured at 10 schools, and two new schools would have opened.

The board voted that plan down last month.

There are no cuts to programs, services or facilities in next year’s budget.

”From our former decision to not make any changes to our footprint, I did not feel like we did everything we can do to lower our deficit,” Reed said. “I did not want to put that burden on taxpayers. I just think we have some work to do.”

The school district tax hike is another expense area property owners will have to address.

County officials in early December 2024 passed a budget with a 36% property tax hike.

Pittsburgh Councilwoman Barb Warwick has proposed a 30% property tax hike in next year’s city budget.

Mayor Ed Gainey’s budget proposal included no tax hikes.

“We are limited as a school district to how much increase we can do year to year,” Walker said. “We don’t quite have the autonomy that the city and the county has. As we look to create some stability financially for the district, this is one of the steps that I believe we needed to do in order to maintain some financial feasibility.”