PA’s Property Tax Referendum Not Limiting Property Taxes

At a PA Senate hearing this week, Sen. Lisa Boscola grilled the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education on Act 1 – which provided for voter referendum on school property tax increases – noting that property taxes have continued to skyrocket after the fact.  Indeed, between a generous index and numerous exemptions, few districts – despite increasing property taxes – have had to seek voter approval.

Secretary Zahorchak reported “a handful or less” of Pennsylvania school districts have actually held voter referendum on tax hikes.  Using my converter from the metric system, I’m going to guess that is around 5 districts.

If only there was an organization that warned that the provisions were unlikely to give voters any real control over property taxes.