School District Tax Increases

With the passage of the East Penn School District budget yesterday, every Lehigh Valley public school district has now passed a tentative or final school district budget, and the results of those budgets are shared below:

	Tax Hike
Allentown School District	4.80% 2.60%
Bangor Area School District	2.20%
Bethlehem Area School District	4.80%
Catasauqua School District	0.00%
Easton Area School District	2.20%
East Penn School District	1.30%
Nazareth Area School District	1.90% 1.80%
Northampton Area School District	1.97%
Northern Lehigh School District	1.50%
Northwestern Lehigh School District	0.00%
Parkland School District	3.67%
Pen Argyl School District	1.67%
Salisbury Township School District	4.06%
Saucon Valley School District	0.00%
Southern Lehigh School District	1.00%
Whitehall - Coplay School District	1.64%
Wilson School District	1.50%

And here's a graph that lays it out:

A few notes about this:

• First, and this should come as no surprise, the two highest hikes were in predominantly urban districts: Allentown and Bethlehem Area.  
• Only three districts managed to hold off any property tax hike: Catasauqua, Northwestern Lehigh and Saucon Valley.
• The average tax hike was 2.01%.
• Traditionally suburban school districts were hit hard here as well, with Parkland and Salisbury having the highest non-urban rates.

Also, please note that tax hikes don't tell the whole story; many of these districts dipped into their fund balances in order to balance their budgets, and multiple districts laid off positions or cut programs as well.  This was a bad year for just about everyone.
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