ISSUES
Dave has worked hard to make Oley a better place to live.
Now he seeks to achieve the same for our district.
How?
- School property tax relief.
Property tax relief is a very complicated issue. A combination of smart programs not only relieving the tax burden but getting to the basis of the problem causing increased property taxes is necessary:
As a first step, we need to eliminate school property tax for homesteads, or sometimes called primary residences. Owners of businesses in the state, who reside here, will benefit as well. With the monies saved by the elimination of such taxes, Pennsylvanians will have more disposable income, a good portion of which will be spent on products and services offered by businesses.
We need to enable school districts to collect impact fees from developers of new developments. It is especially the increased capital costs necessitated by the increased student population that drive the increases in school property taxes. And these costs are the result of large scale residential development in our communities. Impact fees would help moderate higher property taxes by having the parties profiting from such development share in these increased school expenses.
We need to reconsider an expansion of the sales tax to partially offset the elimination of the property tax while including an income tax credit for seniors and low income families to cover reasonable costs for necessaries subject to sales tax.
We need to assist local district to cut costs by making available state prepared architectural and engineering plans and by creating cooperatives for materials such as fuel.
We need to ensure that our school districts get their fair share of all state revenues which may be available.
We need to ensure that the state budget is smart and trim, and that all state surpluses are placed in a special account that goes immediately for property tax relief.
And we should remain open minded to other approaches that would enable property tax relief that is large enough to be worthwhile without unduly burdening the elderly and working families.
- Encourage the rejuvenation of downtown areas.
Revitalization of residential housing in downtown and adjacent neighborhoods would help to reduce unnecessary development in areas where services do not presently exist, while creating a deeper base for existing local businesses and generating even more local businesses. Better utilizing existing infrastructure would help to limit property taxes, and an increased number of local businesses would provide a bigger and more beneficial tax base.
- Improve public education.
A better educated population will attract more businesses—the types of businesses we would like to locate in our communities.
- Preserve open space, farmland and our natural resources.
We need legislation that gives townships greater latitude than they have presently to enact farmland/open space zoning and other ordinances which would protect our rural areas from haphazard development that profits the developer but saddles the community with increased property taxes. Dave feels that if stronger state laws to protect residential water sources had been in place, the residents of the Oley Valley and other townships would not have been forced to spend their time and money to protect their water source from bottled water companies.
|
