Previously, that wage calculation used 12 months of data. Now the department's relying on 36 months due to changes in the unemployment compensation law.
View full sizePennsylvania Education Secretary Ron Tomalis visits Cleveland Elementary School in Allentown.The state has changed the way it calculates school districts' annual cap on property taxes, which has the Bethlehem Area School District superintendent crying foul.
"I believe clearly this is the most ideologically driven secretary of education," Superintendent Joseph Roy said of state Education Secretary Ron Tomalis. "And he works for the governor. They have an agenda. It's not a secret."
Roy and other educators are worried Gov. Tom Corbett's school-choice agenda is starting to affect policy coming out of Harrisburg and causing changes to be made with little notice.
"All of this is behavior that is not helpful to public school districts and it's coming from the Department of Education," Roy said.
Each year, the state calculates the Act 1 index -- the annual cap on how much a district can hike taxes without asking for voter approval or applying to the state for exceptions to the lid. The calculation takes into account a figure known as the statewide average weekly wage.
Previously, that wage calculation used 12 months of data. Now the department's relying on 36 months due to changes to the unemployment compensation law.
It results in a 0.5 percent decrease in the amount of taxes school districts will be able to levy in 2013-14. And the change comes at a time districts are seeing their mandated pension contribution costs jump from 8.65 percent to 12.36 percent.
"That's huge," Roy said of the percentage difference. "They purposefully changed the methodology to keep down the index. This reduces our ability to raise revenues at times we are facing cuts."
Department of Education spokesman Tim Eller said the 2011 amendment to the law resulted in the changes to the statewide average weekly wage, which is calculated by the Department of Labor and Industry. The Department of Education then uses the labor figure in its Act 1 index calculation, Eller said.
"I think it's an open interpretation in the change in the unemployment compensation law," said Jay Himes, executive director of Pennsylvania Association of Business Officials. "I don't think it's clear. I think we have two conflicting statutes."
Himes predicts more districts will be forced to apply to the state for exceptions to meet their pension costs at a time school boards have been reticent to use their exceptions.
"We keep getting less and less ability to raise local revenues in the face of what has happened with state and federal revenues," Himes said.