WEST MIFFLIN, Pa.; March 21, 2025 – The budgeting process for the 2025-26 school year has been underway since late last year within the West Mifflin Area School District. The District is sharing a series of brief stories outlining some of the budget priorities and challenges that will need to be met by the administration and school board; this is the second feature in the series.
The first story presented a broad overview of the budget and how the Titan Evolution will be shaping the District’s strategies and spending amidst an environment of greater uncertainty related to revenues.
The District has demonstrated fiscal responsibility in meaningful ways for West Mifflin residents and will continue to do so, while providing an excellent educational experience for WMASD’s diverse student population.
During the 2023-24 school year, 54% of WMASD’s revenues came from local sources, with 39% coming from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and 7% coming from federal sources (see chart).
Increasing Tax Refunds Impact Budget
One of the biggest factors affecting the budget is the increase in real estate tax refunds WMASD has had to make in recent years due to appeals by property owners, primarily business property owners. A reassessment of property values by Allegheny County has not occurred since 2012.
The second chart examines the District’s real estate tax refunds since the 2020-21 school year. The dark blue portion represents refunds made for that specific year, while the light blue sections show refunds made for prior years. When real estate tax refunds are made, they often include refunds for both the current year and for prior years.
The orange section is the continuing loss in tax revenue to WMASD from the previous years. Because a tax refund results from a drop in assessed property value, the tax bills in following years for that property are lower by the same amount as the tax refund. Therefore, tax refunds result in lower collections not only in the current year, but also in future years.
Thus far in the 2024-25 school year, refunds paid by the District total more than $1.3 million, but the combined lost revenue to the District in 2024-25 is more than $2.3 million due to the lost revenue from refunds since 2020-21. The lost revenue in 2024-25 is equal to 2.6 mills of real estate taxes. For the upcoming budget, the lost revenue for 2025-26 will be at least $1.5 million plus any additional refunds that occur over the next 15 months.
The skyrocketing increase in real estate tax refunds is due to the lack of a reassessment of property values by Allegheny County since 2012. With no reassessment in sight, the amount of refunds the District is paying is anticipated to continue rising until the next county-wide reassessment occurs.
Why Are These Tax Refunds Occurring? Allegheny County Tax Reassessment and the Common Level Ratio
Property assessments are determined using a common level ratio (“CLR”). The Common Level Ratio is the ratio between assessed value and current market value in a particular County and is calculated by the State Tax Equalization Board (“STEB”). STEB must certify a new CLR for each County prior to July 1 every year.
Some Allegheny County property owners challenged their real estate tax assessments in 2022 on the basis that Allegheny County reported inaccurate data to STEB. The Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas granted a preliminary injunction reducing the CLR and ordered Allegheny County to resubmit sales data to STEB. Since then, Allegheny County changed the reporting of real estate sales data to STEB. The result has been a sharp decline in both the CLR and the tax revenue received by Allegheny County- and by the municipalities and school districts in Allegheny County- over the last four years.
The remedy for a declining CLR is a county-wide reassessment that resets the assessed value on all property in the County to equal the property’s fair market value. This would create a new “base-year” assessment in which the CLR is set at 100% of assessed value. Although lawsuits have been filed to try force a reassessment to occur, it will be several years before they are settled and several more years after that before a county-wide reassessment can be completed, if ordered.
To summarize, WMASD has lost more than $2.3 million in revenue, or the equivalent of 2.6 mills of real estate tax revenue, for the 2024-25 school year. Due to the lack of a county-wide reassessment, WMASD will lose ever-increasing amounts of revenue in the coming years.
The third story in this series will look at some of the areas where expenses have risen significantly and their impact on the district budget.