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Northampton Area Hikes Tax 5.64 Percent: Month After School Gun Incident, Board Approves More Security Funding.

Posted on: Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 09:00 CDT

By Michael Duck, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Jun. 20--Homeowners in Northampton Area School District will pay 5.64 percent more in school property tax this coming year. A weapons incident last month at the high school figured into the board's budgeting more for security.

The district school board approved the 2.1-mill increase Monday as part of a $72 million final budget for 2006-07, also voting to move forward with a plan to scrap the district's occupation tax.

Though school board members had hoped to cut the property tax increase to just 2 mills, administrators said the extra one-tenth of a mill would allow the school to hire more security personnel, and put video cameras in school buses and parking lots.

"This is sending the message that we do take security seriously," said Superintendent Linda Firestone. New security measures are "an advantage to the students and staff.... They feel safer."

Officials have been talking about increased security for months, but the standoff, lockdown and evacuation at Northampton Area High School on May 25 encouraged the board to act more quickly, Firestone said.

Police said they believe Max Brotzman, 18, used a guitar case to sneak a .22-caliber rifle and two knives into a little-used stairwell at the school, where he threatened to hurt himself. Police arrested him, and no one was injured.

Brotzman already had enough credits to receive his diploma, so he graduated June 10 in absentia. However, the incident also automatically launched an expulsion process, and the school board voted Monday to approve Brotzman's expulsion.

"He may not come back to the school for any reason," Firestone said Monday.

Brotzman, of Lehigh Township, was charged with possessing weapons at school and making terroristic threats, and his preliminary hearing is scheduled for Friday.

New security measures proposed Monday by Firestone include a new school police officer, who would be a district employee, and an additional contracted security guard to join the others already at the high school.

School officials also plan to buy an autodialer, which could notify parents of an emergency within minutes, and digital video cameras that would monitor fighting, vandalism or drug use in buses or parking lots.

To trim the tax hike to 2 mills, administrators in the past week considered cutting some of those security measures from the budget.

As board members picked through the draft budget that administrators unveiled in April, the proposed tax increase fluctuated from 6.5 percent down to 5.37 percent.

Other cuts to reach Monday's final budget included eliminating parent newsletters, trimming the technology budget and turning down two proposed elementary school math coaches, Firestone said.

Board members agreed Monday that the cuts had gone far enough.

"You get to a certain point when you're going to nickel and dime it to death and hurt what you have," said school Director Jane Erdo, agreeing to the 2.1-mill increase.

With only one-tenth of a mill dedicated to security, most of the tax hike was prompted by the district's fast-growing student population. The budget includes money for new teachers and for debt payments as the district builds more classrooms.

While board members Richard Zuercher and Madelyn Kemp were absent Monday, all other seven board members voted to approve the final budget, raising the property tax to 39.35 mills.

Homeowners with property assessed at the new district average of $53,816 will pay $2,117.66 per year, an increase of about $113 from last year.

In the budget vote, the board also agreed to let voters decide if the district should replace its occupation tax with an earned income tax hike.

If voters approve the plan in a November referendum, most district residents would see their local income tax increase from 1 percent to 1.2 percent. The extra 0.2 percent would match the lost occupation tax revenues dollar-for-dollar.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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