Greater Latrobe OKs 3.57-mill tax hike cap, locks in natural gas savings

The Greater Latrobe School Board has agreed to cap any potential property tax hike for 2022-23 to no more than 3.57 mills, the maximum amount as determined by a state-calculated inflation-based index.

School directors this week also locked in an expected $22,000 savings on the future price of natural gas.

By staying within that cap, the district has avoided having to approve an early preliminary budget.

District Business Administrator Dan Watson said he felt comfortable recommending the millage cap in light of increasing local tax revenue and the availability of federal pandemic recovery funds.

“What we were seeing from local revenue collections was more favorable last year than in past years,” he said. “And, from everything I read, at the state level, they’re also getting favorable returns” — which should bode well for the level of state subsidies Greater Latrobe will receive for 2022-23.

According to figures presented by Watson, each mill of real estate tax generates $345,000 for the district. Increasing the tax up to the cap would result in a rate of 88.57 mills.

But, over the past several years, the district has kept tax hikes well below its annual cap, ranging between 0.5-mill and 1.75 mills.

Greater Latrobe locked in a two-year decrease of 13 cents per dekatherm in the transmission cost for natural gas supplied by Peoples/Direct Energy.

According to Watson, that should result in an annual savings of about $11,000 during the district’s renewed agreement with the utility for Sept. 1, 2023, through Aug. 31, 2025.

“We look at future markets for buying our commodities,” he said, noting a current surplus of the fuel. “There’s a lot of natural gas in the pipelines right now.”

Greater Latrobe got the favorable gas deal through working with adviser Keytex Energy.