Taxpayers are Entitled to a Referendum.
From the Pennsylvania Referendum Handbook dated Feb 2017:
“School Districts of the second class may not construct a new school building or a substantial addition to an existing building without the consent of the voters through a referendum.” (Allegheny County is a second class county)
“Public hearings and referendum under this section are the exclusive procedure for gaining public input on school building construction.” (See Attached Handbook)
The School Board did anticipate a referendum on the issue of a new school. Their minutes, their statements to the newspapers and their statements to the community all agreed that there would be a referendum.
However, in 2018 they conducted a poll to see how people would respond to the tax increases associated with building a new school and did not like the result. (See Results)
Thereafter, they met with the architectural firm VEBH and their financial advisors and determined there was a strategy they could employ to avoid a referendum. (See Attached Proposal)
We became aware that they had adopted this strategy in the Fall of 2019 when they stated they no longer intended to have a referendum on the question of building a new high school.
The strategy involves using all permitted tax increases, Act 1, to pay for construction. There are several problems with this scheme. The first is that Act 1 is designed to offset inflation and rising costs. If the money is used for construction then it isn’t available for curriculum or teachers or anything else. The second problem is that construction will have to be stretched out over a longer period of time. Since prices go up, this will affect ultimate costs. Finally, it is possible, that the School Board will travel this road for several years spending millions of taxpayer dollars before realizing that the plan won’t get them to their goal. At that point they will have a referendum and say, ‘we cannot afford to not proceed.’
Either way, the community is being deprived of a rightful opportunity to vote on whether they want taxpayer dollars spent on this high school plan.
If nothing more, the School Board has an ethical obligation to seek a referendum. Any plan to spend more than 100 million dollars should be based upon voter approval.
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