Property Taxes, School Revenue, and School Spending

This blog is intended to provide our patrons with some updated facts and figures pertaining to our budget and tax request and your hard earned tax dollars.


Spending YOUR Tax Dollars
• Five years ago, in 2008-09, YPS spent $13,813,663
o YPS spent $14,319,658 in 2013-14
 This is just a 3.6% ($505,995) increase in spending over five years
• Our average spending increased annually by just .72%

School District Revenue
• Five years ago, in 2008-09, YPS received a total of $13,759,522
o YPS received a total of $14,411,482 in 2013-14
 This is just a 4.7% ($651,960) increase in total revenue over five years
• Our average total revenue increased annually by just .94%

YOUR Property Taxes
• Our 2014-15 total tax levy is $1.24
o This is 4.2 pennies smaller than it was in 2013-14
o This is 5.1 pennies smaller than it was in 2012-13
• In 2014-15, we are asking for $10,049,494 of your property tax dollars
o This is an increase of $2,982,099; which comes to 42.2% over just five years ago!
o So even though our levy is lower, the amount of property tax you pay is higher
• The point we want to emphasize over and over again is that even though many of you are paying much higher property taxes, it is not leading to additional spending at YPS. It is simply helping to fill in for declining receipts from the state and federal level. For example, state aid to YPS has decreased from $3,700,000 in 2008-09 to just $1,447,000 in 2013-14 and now $2,214,000 in 2014-15.
o Even with over a 42% increase in property tax request in the past five years, our total receipts have increased just $651,960; which is just 4.7%, or .94% annually, as shown above. We haven’t been able to provide more property tax relief due to decreases in state and federal funding.
 We’ve had to skip curriculum adoptions, technology upgrades, and vehicle purchases to make sure our disbursements weren’t higher than our receipts.

We are working hard to try and maximize the use of your tax dollars. We’re working with various leaders across the state on potential ideas for property tax relief. We understand the concerns out there. They are not being ignored. If you’d like to visit in person, or have me come speak to a group, club, or coffee crew, please call or email; and we can set it up.

Go Dukes!

Mike Lucas
mike.lucas@yorkdukes.org
402-366-6491 (Cell)