Highlands sees increase in property tax revenue despite pandemic

Highlands School District has collected about $1.1 million more in property taxes over the first four months of the fiscal year compared to the same period a year ago, despite projections that Pennsylvania districts would see such collections plummet because of the covid-19 pandemic.

Highlands Business Manager Lori Byron said the district collected about $14.9 million in property taxes from July through October, a nearly 8% increase over the $13.8 million collected over the same four months in 2019.

Among the district’s four municipalities, the biggest increases were seen in Tarentum, a 25% increase from more than $1.4 million to $1.8 million, and in Brackenridge, a 17% increase from nearly $1.4 million to $1.6 million.

Collections in Fawn increased by about 4.8%, from $1.95 million to just more than $2 million, and about 4.4% in Harrison, from nearly $9.1 million to more than $9.4 million.

“We exceeded expectations,” Byron told the school board at its meeting Monday. “I was really pleasantly surprised.”

Groups such as the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials had projected that districts would see property tax revenue for the 2020-21 school year fall because of the pandemic.

PASBO earlier this year issued a report projecting districts would lose up to $1 billion in local revenue because of the pandemic. In addition to property taxes, local revenue also includes income tax, real estate transfer tax and interest earnings.

Tim Shrom, director of research for PASBO, said the pandemic’s impact on school districts has been mitigated to varying degrees by stimulus programs. Some impacts may drag into next year as the stimulus money goes away, furloughs become permanent layoffs, businesses close and property assessment values are challenged.

“It’s very clear the stimulus monies really mitigated a lot of the impact,” he said. “We have a long way to go until we see the final impacts.”

Shrom said his group’s projections were based on factors such as tax rates and property values remaining the same. While Highlands did not increase its property tax rate, the district’s taxable assessed value increased by 0.4%, from $779.6 million to $782.5 million, according to Allegheny County.

Because of the projections, Byron reduced how much revenue she expected Highlands to collect from property taxes by nearly 4%, from nearly $16.3 million to nearly $15.7 million.

But as a result of collections increasing, the district has collected more than 95% of its budgeted property tax revenue from July to October this year, compared to just under 85% collected over the same time in 2019.

The district’s collection rate is not normally that high, Byron said. She speculated that the district benefited from the federal payroll protection program and other relief programs that helped residents maintain their incomes and employers such as the school district, hospitals and others continue to pay employees.

Tarentum Tax Collector Karen Marietti believes stimulus checks residents received earlier this year also helped.

“I had a lot of people say to me that they were able to pay it all at one time instead of doing the payment plan like they normally do,” she said. “That had a lot to do with it.”

Marietti said it also helped that the district extended the discount period to Sept. 30, and is collecting taxes at face value through the end of the year, with no penalty period. Taxes not paid by Dec. 31 will become delinquent and subject to penalty.

The district increasing delinquent tax collection efforts has motivated property owners to pay to avoid getting hit with the extra fees and penalties, Brackenridge Tax Collector Melinda Cattley said.

“People don’t want to pay the fees,” she said.