New Hope Borough Hall.
A welcome bit of good news came this week amid the worsening covid-19 landscape.
New Hope Borough says there will be no increase in real estate taxes called for in its 2021 budget.
“We recognize that our constituent taxpayers are struggling financially, as well as in many other ways,” said Council President Connie Gering. “The borough’s portion of your real estate tax is only about 10% of your total real estate tax bill (the school and county taxes take up the remainder). Council and I feel we need to help our residents and business owners get through this as painlessly as possible, while also keeping fiduciary responsibility for the Borough.
“It is with this in mind that we are proposing a 2021 budget that holds the line on the borough’s taxes,” continued Gering. “There will be no increase in real estate taxes in our budget.”
Despite what the borough described as an unpredictable financial environment due to decreased payroll taxes and some unexpected expenditures, officials say they have been able to keep the local budget under control.
“We can do this due to our careful attention to spending and the hard work of Borough staff to seek out cost savings,” explained Gering. “This will be the sixth year of no increases to your New Hope Borough taxes.”
New Hope doubled parking rates Aug. 1 to $1.50 per hour, up from 75 cents per hour.
How can anyone justify the same school tax rate when this whole year (don’t worry I know it’s only Nov, but school’s not coming back) and a third of last year there is no school. NHSHS and it’s board have abandoned our kids, left them uneducated, and sentenced them to lockdown, loneliness, depression, and in some cases drug abuse.
Too bad the same can not be said for Solebury. As far as school taxes for New Hope/Solebury? FORGETABOUTIT! the school board, all nine of whom have kids in the district will tax us to the max and even more so if they could.
At a recent school board meeting, I believe that it was Sept. Supt. Charles Lentz said that even though there were savings in the Spring when the District went virtual, we will still have to dip into our savings to the tune of $500,000 to cover costs of covid 19.
And with a new teacher’s due this coming $pring, need I $pell it out for you>