Division I regional track finals
Fenwick graduation 2012
Ponitz graduation 2012
E-mail 
E-mail 
E-mail Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2010 > October > 20 > Entry
Dayton property taxes to rise
DAYTON — There is no school levy on the November ballot for the Dayton Public School District but, come January, property taxes will be going up.
For eight years, Dayton Public School District property owners have been paying less taxes on the $245 million bond issue that voters approved in November 2002 because district officials rolled back the millage when times were good.
But now, because of a drop in tax collections due to the foreclosure crisis, that is coming to an end.
The Dayton Public Board of Education on Tuesday unanimously approved adjusting the millage, which will impact how much residents and businesses pay annually on the bond issue.
District treasurer Stan Lucas said raising it from 7.2 to the original 7.97 mills means the owner of a $100,000 home will pay $23.58 more annually. The change will generate $1.3 million to $2 million more a year for the district, according to estimates.
Dayton Public isn’t alone in doing this. Four other districts — Kettering, Springboro, Miamisburg and Northridge — adjusted millage on bond issues or emergency levies in 2010, said Bill Loy, assistant auditor for the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office.
Kettering City Schools treasurer Steve Clark said a drop in property values was a factor in why its tax rate was raised to the original 4.9 mills on the $102 million bond issue voters approved in 2002.
Dayton Public school board President Jeffrey J. Mims Jr. said its adjustment is necessary because the district is not collecting what it’s obligated to pay on the debt.
“It would force us to be in default, and legally we can’t do that,” he said.
Dayton voters approved the 28-year bond issue to fund the district’s portion of the $627 million construction project for 26 new schools.
District had put off increasing tax rate sooner
DAYTON — Dayton Public Schools Treasurer Stan Lucas said district officials held off adjusting the tax rate on the 2002 bond issue until now because they were hoping to see some improvement in property tax collections.
That hasn’t happened.
“This July was $1 million less than last July,” he said. “We’re still in a decline.”
Restoring the millage to 7.97 mills, which voters approved eight years ago, will allow the district to collect an estimated $1.3 million to $2 million more a year, according to estimates from the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office and district treasurer.
The district needs $15 million annually to pay the debt service, the cash required during a given period for the repayment of interest and principal.
The district has had to dig into a cash reserve fund, as much as $2.5 million annually, to help cover it. Without the adjustment, the district faces a $1 million negative cash balance in that fund in fiscal year 2012.
Lucas stressed the district is not increasing the level of debt — the principal or interest on the bond — or how much the community owes, just the share each property owner will be paying.
He knows people will be upset about the increase but said the adjusted rate is what they would have been all along had the district never rolled back the millage earlier.
“The taxpayers enjoyed a number of years with lower tax payments than what they would have had,” he said. “They got a pretty sizable front-end discount.”
Lucas said 2002 was a reappraisal year when property values were going up.
After the election, before the January 2003 bills went out, the district had the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office adjust the rate from 7.97 mills to 7.2 mills “because we didn’t want to over-collect,” Lucas said. District officials had pledged during the campaign they would collect only what was needed to pay the bond debt service.
“That has carried us all these years until this year,” Lucas said. Kettering City Schools Treasurer Steve Clark said the county auditor last year recommended the district adjust the millage on the $102 million bond issue voters approved there in 2002 for the construction or renovation of school buildings. When the bond issue passed, the estimated millage needed to collect $102 million over 28 years was listed at 4.9 mills.
But it was adjusted to as low as 3.6 mills.
“I asked to lower it a few years before that. We were bringing in enough. I didn’t want to overburden the taxpayer at the time,” Clark said. “I didn’t foresee the financial crisis.”
It was adjusted from 4.5 mills to 4.9 mills for 2010.
Changing the millage on that bond issue meant the owner of a $100,000 home paid $12.25 annually, or $1.02 more per month, Clark said.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Tweet
Comments
By Ann
October 31, 2010 7:29 AM | Link to this
I pay $6,600 a year in dayton tax’s on my house.the value has gone down $50,00, so you can bet I am not happy. I will be filing in January to have them lowered to be in line with the value of my house. I do not think I should be punished because of the many people that do not pay their Tax’s.
By Max
October 21, 2010 8:48 AM | Link to this
@Joe Lacey….Joe, I have to say DPS has made some positive efforts in ‘cleaning house’ of its dead weight teachers. My son taught at Dunbar his first two years after graduation; Dunbar being one of the better, if not the best, schools in the district. However, his description of the school day with teachers hanging out in the hallways, ignoring their classrooms…etc…well, you get the picture. Whether it’s administration or teachers that fail in the presentation of education is a seperate, but significant, issue apart from curriculum and structure. I agree it is not enough to identify problems; we need informed and well conceived solutions which can be applied nationally with sensitivity to local needs.
By Maxwell Powers
October 20, 2010 8:00 PM | Link to this
It will be interesting to see if moving the mileage back to the passed amount will actually result in more money coming in. This will be a big test to see how weak the Dayton market may be. Regardless, this only deals with the special funds for building new schools… it does not address the impending funding shortfall for operations. Enjoy this year, because the 2011-2012 school year is likely to be brutal.
By Raoul
October 20, 2010 12:43 PM | Link to this
So, evidently times were good during the Bush years
By Nice Move
October 20, 2010 12:40 PM | Link to this
Don’t look now, but the schools just undercut the Issue 9 levy by going forward at this time. And why do they always use a $100,000 home for an example? Most homes in Dayton Schools aren’t worth $50-75k.
By Max
October 20, 2010 11:33 AM | Link to this
Well, given the millage it would seem DPS is being responsible in keeping the increase as low as possible. It’s also noteworthy Lucas and Mims could have initiated this last year but chose to wait until it was actually needed.