Ed Rendell is a smart, smart politician: playing the Armani Suit while heading up the Democratic National Committee, or bending an elbow with the crazies in the 700 level at old Veterans Stadium.
Now he's a popular governor/football analyst in a year when the latter gets you more face time than the former. So, when he declared the Homeowner Tax Relief Act (Act 72) "the most sweeping tax-reform program in Pennsylvania in a generation", residents wanted to chant R-E-N-D-E-L-L along with E-A-G-L-E-S.
Tweeeeeet! Penalty on the Gov for illegal procedure. Act 72, with its noble goal of reducing property taxes, has too many men in motion, leaves too much to chance, and, like an NFL defense, can take years to understand, explain or implement. It is, literally, a huge gamble with the funding of our public education system.
Tweeeeeet! Illegal substitution. Property tax is the main source of state income for education. Act 72 does not provide any additional money for schools; it merely allows districts to 1) increase the local INCOME tax, and then 2) possibly use a share of the anticipated revenue from new casinos to someday reduce PROPERTY taxes. The higher income tax would never be reduced by gambling revenue.
Tweeeeeet! Delay of game. If adopted in Quakertown Community School District, everyone would pay a higher income tax immediately, and hope that property taxes will some day be reduced. Under any circumstances, those reductions can not occur before 2007.
Tweeeeeet! Ineligible receiver. If you are one of the more than 2000 renters living in the school district, you would get no financial benefit, while still having to pay the increased income tax!
Tweeeeeet! Unsportsmanlike conduct. Even if you can get past the idea of encouraging folks to pull more slots to ease our burden of educating our children, the outcome is truly a fourth-and-very-long gamble for everyone. No one will see their property taxes reduced by even a penny from those casinos until we lose much more than the midnight-green shirts off our backs.
Before school districts would see any funds from gambling, a reserve of $400 million must be accumulated, plus an additional $500 million each year . Note that this $900 million figure would only represent the tax on gaming. The actual losses by the public would be far, far more.
Approximately $9.4 billion must be gambled each year to reach that $500 million touchdown. That's 36 billion quarters in the slots, 98 million per day, 68,000 per minute!
To help insure that Pennsylvanians do drain their pocketbooks faster than a blitzing linebacker, 61,000 slot machines are being allocated around the commonwealth. This would rank the Keystone Slot, er, State number two in the nation behind only Nevada. And does anyone really believe that with slots approved, table games aren't far behind? The only sure winners are the casinos!
The scenario for QCSD was presented to the school board back in December. The summary was almost 50 pages long, and I get only about 950 words here. Trust me, the potential problems are enough without trying to unscramble the terminology. If Donovan McNabb was calling the play in the huddle, it would sound like "30 May school dist opt, slot lot heavy, 72 resolution, EIT 0.1 referendum, badda-bing, ring-ring-ring, oy vay."
Remember, in order to qualify for the possibility of that future relief, QCSD must raise your earned income tax rate immediately , even though the school district will not know for two years the financial impact the decision will have. And the choice will bind us for a long time. Possibly forever.
If we're out, a new board could not opt in later. If we're in, a board must wait at least four years to opt out, and only then if voters agree to give up yearly tax credits. A bigger gamble than the slot machines themselves!
In order to be able to offer this possible relief to the taxpayers, the school district must allow a cap on its current right to raise taxes to fund its programs. This would mean yet another referendum every time it is necessary to significantly increase the school budget. Some people feel this is not necessarily a bad thing.
Act 72 was passed in response to pressure for accountability in school districts, like giving hefty raises to teachers. And many other states do require voter approval of large school-tax increases. But now, a board would have to draw up annual budgets months before knowing its state-aid allocation.
Actually, this law will pit parents against senior citizens. Please lower class size, increase bus stops, lower the number of students on a bus, offer more electives, provide more help for special needs children, raise the test scores, more field trips, more parking, more computers, stop bullying, stop smoking, stop drugs, better sports fields...but lower my taxes while you do that.
School Superintendent James Scanlon is as conflicted as anyone. "Our board, as well as all school boards in Pennsylvania, is between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they really do understand the plight of senior citizens on fixed income and want to help them. Act 72 should help those people with some property tax relief. But by doing so, school budgets will be subject to referendum. If a referendum fails, the board will be forced make drastic cuts in programs."
In the end, Act 72 is a politician's nightmare. No matter what choices are made, a large segment of the population is in for another Super Bowl-size disappointment.