A lack of property tax reassessments, rising healthcare costs and a shrinking tax base have led several school districts in Allegheny County to consistently raise taxes in the last few years. At least 25 of the county’s 42 suburban school districts have proposed raising taxes for the 2026-27 school year.
The proposed hikes follow a recent trend: 29 school districts raised taxes in 2024-25 and 31 did so in 2025-26.
The proposed increases range from 1.429 mills in East Allegheny to 0.3294 mills in the Riverview School District. One mill is a dollar of tax due per $1,000 of assessed value.
School districts in Allegheny County continue to face financial distress because of rising charter school costs and operating expenditures, health care costs, low state and federal funding and uncertain property tax revenue.
Districts bedeviled by base year taxes, ratio
Robert Geletko, business manager at Cornell School District, said charter school costs, special education tuition, transportation and the lower common level ratio used to calculate some property taxes forced the district to raise taxes this year.
Many districts heavily rely on local property taxes for their revenue. Allegheny County still uses a base year assessment system, meaning most properties are taxed based on what they were worth in 2012. However, property values have changed significantly since then. When assessments stay frozen for too long, schools might need to raise millage rates to maintain revenues, or increasingly appeal the assessments of new property buyers, which can then rise.
“We just need to get everybody on a playing field,” Geletko told Public Source in an interview. “It’s really unfair,” he said, that new buyers are taxed differently from people who have been in their homes for a long time. The Cornell school board approved a resolution on May 20 that was sent to the county council to advocate for a county-wide reassessment.
Property owners can also appeal their assessments if they believe their properties are worth less than what the county says. If they win appeals, their taxable value drops and the district’s overall tax base shrinks.
Ira Weiss of Weiss Burkardt Kramer, a law firm that serves as a solicitor or special counsel for Pittsburgh and several school districts within Allegheny County, said a primary factor for school districts raising taxes is the eroding tax base because of property assessment appeals and changes to an obscure calculation called the common level ratio (CLR).
The CLR is a calculation meant to roughly equalize the assessments of similar properties whether they were last assessed during the base year (2012) or assessed more recently via appeals. The ratio is set by the State Tax Equalization Board based on data submitted by the county.
Allegheny County’s ratio was 100% in 2013, when the assessments were on target, but is now around 50%, meaning a property owner who successfully appeals is taxed at half the current value.
“The downward the [common-level] ratio falls, the taxable amounts, the amounts that are subject to millage fall, and anytime anybody files an appeal, they get the benefit of that decrease,” he said.
The Pine-Richland School District proposes to raise its millage from 19.5867 to 20.6228 mills (5.29%), their first potential increase since 2017.
In an email response, Erin Hasinger, director of communications at Pine-Richland, pointed to the common-level ratio as a driver of the district’s $4.7 million structural deficit. A majority of the district’s revenue comes from local real estate and earned income taxes. It ranks the third-lowest in state revenue and the lowest in federal revenue shares in the county.
Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) sued the county in 2024 to compel a county-wide reassessment of properties. The lawsuit was dismissed in January 2025, but PPS appealed and now awaits a Commonwealth Court decision. Allegheny County Council is considering legislation that would compel a reassessment by 2028, followed by regular updates.
PPS, which follows a calendar year budget, increased taxes by 2% in 2026, which raised the millage rate to 10.457.
Health care and benefit costs rising
Weiss said other factors for raising taxes include rising costs from salaries, pensions and health insurance. Some school districts are facing an 8% increase in health insurance costs this year.
(Photo by Sarah Collins/ Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
The 2026 State of Education report by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association says that 52% of school districts found rising health care costs as a top budget concern following charter school tuition payments and special education costs.
Mandated costs such as pensions, charter schools payments and special education costs have outpaced growth in any other areas of spending for school districts in the state. From 2013-14 to 2023-24, those costs have increased by $6.1 billion, while state revenue to pay for those costs only increased by $2 billion, according to the report.
Since 2009-10, special education costs have doubled, while state and federal special education funding has only increased by 21% during that time.
While decisions are still being finalized, Pine-Richland is also considering significant expense reductions in personnel, supplies, technology and programs to balance its budget, Hasinger added.
Apart from a declining CLR, rising healthcare costs and increased electricity expenses are also driving up costs at Upper St. Clair, where local taxes make up 78% of the district’s revenue. Communications specialist Tina Vojtko said these factors combined made a $2 million impact on Upper St. Clair’s budget.
Construction, upgrades drive some hikes
For the Keystone Oaks School District, capital costs are driving the need for more revenue. Sarah Welch, coordinator of communications and public relations, said in an email that the district is planning a multi-million-dollar renovation of its three elementary schools over the next several years. The district borrowed $35 million to complete the first phase of the project, which would bring its bond payment to $2 million per year.
The Fox Chapel School District proposed an increase from 22 mills to 22.68 mills because of appeals-related tax base erosion and a little increase in state funding, as reported by the Trib.
Ryan Manzer, director of finance at Fox Chapel, said the proposed tax increase is needed to meet rising personnel costs, including salaries, benefits and pensions. The projected revenue from the higher taxes would also fund facilities and HVAC upgrades across the district.
Eric Montarti, research director at nonprofit think tank The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, said many school districts are embarking on capital projects such as building new schools, closing some buildings or renovating facilities, and might increase taxes for a limited time to offset those costs.
The law on tax hikes
According to Act 1, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 2006, school districts may raise property taxes based on a state-provided index that limits annual hikes.
“The decision on whether they’re going to increase taxes or not, kind of follows the process of when they go into their budget and the Act 1 process, looking at how much money they might have in reserves and what does that mean as a percentage of how much money they spend,” Montarti said. “If they’re above a certain threshold, they might not be able to increase taxes because of how much money they have on hand.”
School districts can request an exception from the Department of Education to increase taxes above their index. Exceptions include construction costs, special education and pension obligations. Pine-Richland is the only school district in Allegheny County that applied for an exception and was granted one this year, allowing it to increase millage from 19.5867 to 20.6228 mills.
Leaders at Mt. Lebanon School District said property tax appeals have significantly impacted the district’s revenue. The median homeowner in Mt. Lebanon, which has a millage rate of 30.95, pays $5,920 annually in taxes, per The Trib. The district is considering raising taxes from 30.95 to 32.033 mills to balance its $4.2 million deficit.
Mt. Lebanon was granted an Act 1 Index special education exception last year but not this year, which has created further financial distress.
School districts are required to adopt a final budget by the end of June.
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Cilia Catello.
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