The East Aurora School Board voted 6-1 last month to decrease the amount of property taxes the district will seek to collect this year by about $440,000 — but taxpayers still will see an increase over last year’s taxing rate.
Raymond Hull, the board president, voted against the decrease.
East Aurora is seeking to collect about $29.5 million in property taxes to cover its operating costs, which include everything from teacher salaries to textbooks to utility costs. The district also is looking to collect $11.3 million in taxes to pay down its debt. That brings the total collection to $40.8 million.
Under the levy the school board approved back in December, the district could have collected up to $41.2 million.
During the levy discussion late last year, school board members passed a resolution that said they’d come back in the spring to review the amount of property taxes they would request from district residents to see if the taxes could be lowered.
Christi Tyler, the district’s assistant superintendent for finance, said the reduction was possible because the total value of property in the district hadn’t dropped by as much as expected and the amount of new property being added to the tax rolls is up.
Despite that reduction, the amount of property taxes East Aurora is asking of residents is up over last year.
In 2014, the district looked to collect $37.9 million, with $29.3 million for operating costs and $8.6 million for bond debt.
An East Aurora resident with a $150,000 home — who takes the maximum homeowner’s exemption — can expect to pay around $3,342 in district taxes this year.
If the school board hadn’t reduced the collection some, the bill would have been about $36 higher.
Last year, that same resident with no changes in her home value would have paid about $3,036 in taxes to East Aurora.
Much of the tax increase is due to a larger collection for bond payments. Last school year, the school board decided to dip into the district’s reserves to pay off some of its debt instead of asking taxpayers to cover the amount required by the district’s repayment plan.
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Without refinancing that debt or changing the repayment plan, it took a significant hike in taxes to get back on track with the plan.
Board members said they planned to revisit the repayment plan soon. They planned to hear a presentation from the financial firm that counsels East Aurora on debt management.