This “Reconnected” column ran last year around this time. I just read Vivian Bianco’s letter to the editor on BerksMont’s web site. She thinks that seniors should not have to pay school tax. I’m all for it. I don’t know if Ms. Bianco has children who benefited from the taxes she has paid. I just know that the sting is doubly painful for those few of us with no children. Read on …
A few weeks ago I visited my local township building. When I walked out, the balance in my checkbook was thousands of dollars less than it was when I walked in.
It was property tax time. Time to pay the rent on the house I own.
Everybody’s upset about property taxes, aka school real estate tax. The most vocal opponents are usually parents with school-aged children and empty-nesters (households whose children are through school and out of the nest).
Even though both groups have children who either are or were enrolled in our public schools, they frequently lock horns over property taxes.
Rarely do I hear complaints from people who have no children.
Let me fix that. I am a person with no children. Statistically, I am in the same group as the empty-nesters, but obviously since I don’t have children who attended school, I don’t fit there. That makes me a minority.
I am also a property owner. Been one since the 1970s.
When I bought my first house, I knew full well that the cost of home ownership included property taxes to support the public schools. That was fine with me. I’m part of this society, and I’m all for children getting an education. Quite simply, it was the price of owning property.
Every year around tax time, the topic heats up and it’s the parents vs. the empty-nesters. Young parents who recently purchased homes with higher tax assessments have higher tax bills, and they direct their anger at folks who’ve owned their homes for a longer time and who have lower tax assessments – people like their own parents. The young parents cry for a new assessment to level the playing field. What they don’t realize is that a new assessment won’t necessarily reduce the assessment nor the taxes on their newer, larger, more expensive, fully-loaded MacMansions. It will however, raise the tax burden on older folks who live in older, smaller, less expensive homes. For many of these homeowners, the tax is already a real burden and many fear losing their homes to property taxes that they simply can’t afford to pay.
And then there’s my minority: homeowners with no children. Other than my own public school education, which my parents paid for with their property taxes, I cost the schools nothing.
Still, every year I dutifully pay my property taxes without comment. I, too, am getting older, and for the first time in my homeownership career, I am considering the very real possibility that I may not be able to afford to live in the home that I worked so hard to own.
Thus far, no one has come up with a viable solution to either eliminate or significantly reduce property taxes. The politicians are all over the place and they are no place. The citizens can’t move the ball forward if they continually lock horns in name-calling matches between young and old property owners.
As property owners, we all agreed to help keep the schools in business, whether or not we have children. I don’t calculate how much money I’ve paid in property taxes over the years. I think of it as rent. And, if I had a few kids to send off to school every day, I might even consider it a pretty good deal.
New Life
Then this morning I saw what I thought was a cat going past my window. It turned out to be the newest fawn I’ve ever seen, accompanied by Mommy deer and another baby. The little guy was not much bigger than my cat (note the kitty watching baby deer from inside the window). Then came mommy and another tiny fawn. They’re somewhere in the woods now, but I’ll be checking throughout the day to see if mother deer nests them close to the house.