By John Kline
Members of the Goshen Board of School Trustees Monday learned that the corporation will be losing approximately $232,000 due to the property tax caps implemented as part of the 2008 property tax reform process.
Under the new legislation, homestead property taxes for 2009 have been capped at 1.5 percent of assessed value, while other residential properties, including rental properties, nursing homes and farmland, have been capped at 2.5 percent and all remaining property is capped at 3.5 percent.
At issue is the fact that such caps effectively reduce the amount of money coming into the school corporation through its share of the property taxes collected.
According to Superintendent Bruce Stahly, while the originally anticipated rate of loss had been projected at around $300,000, a figure of $232,000 is still a significant blow to the school corporation.
And while the majority of the cut — $118,000 — will be felt in the corporation’s debt service fund, Stahly warned the cut will affect nearly all other funds due to the fact that such a large chunk of money will need to be replaced from those other funds.
“$231,000 may not sound like much,” Stahly said, “but if we are to replenish that $118,000 in debt service, we’re going to have to get those monies from somewhere.”
Stahly said such a cut could mean that a school classroom will need to go without computers, or expensive items such as copy machines may need to be forgone or reduced at certain schools.
“That’s going to take a toll on us,” Stahly said, adding that the cut is “only a warning for what could happen next year” due to the fact that the circuit breaker caps will be reduced even more in 2010 to 1 percent, 2 percent and 3 percent of gross assessed value for each respective property type.
“The potential is there,” Stahly said.
