Letter to the editor: Why does Latrobe have to raise taxes?

Regarding the article “Greater Latrobe School District: Tentative budget passes with tax increase” (May 25, TribLIVE): Thank you, Andrew Repko, for standing up for senior citizens; $81 is a lot of money when you don’t have any or very little.

Why is it that whenever someone comes up with an idea, we need to do it? Who pays for it? Why not any good ideas to pay for anything? Can’t Michael Zorch and the other school board members cut costs somewhere?

In industry, businesses are always looking to cut costs; if they don’t, it catches up to them. They will be beat by someone else on price. If a business fails and goes bankrupt — no more employees and no more taxes for the school district.

The school board just keeps raising taxes to cover everything they think they need. They’re playing with people’s lives. Everyone is hurting now; everything costs more than it did two years ago. Why don’t they ask everyone who works in the school district to take a pay cut, or maybe Zorch and those who think like him pay the extra money out of their pockets to cover the extra costs instead of raising taxes?

Will the school district go bankrupt if we don’t raise taxes? Just because everyone else does something doesn’t mean you need to. Even if you get money from the state, that’s still taxpayer money. If you don’t pay taxes, why would you even care?

Cliff Long

Unity