Delaware County 55+ Coalition

From the Delaware County Times

A vote for the ages
Sunday, October 19, 2008 6:50 AM EDT
By Vicky Thomas vthomas@delcotimes.com

Tony Santore has nothing against educators or successful schools.

“Our concern is, what real accountability do school districts have to the average taxpayer?” he said.

Santore is the founder of the Delaware County 55+ Coalition, a grassroots taxpayer advocacy group composed of six Delaware County active adult communities — Fox Hill Farm, Riviera, Belmont, Fox Field, Creekside and Windsor.

A 72-year-old retired health-care administrator, Santore resides in Fox Hill Farm, a sprawling village in Concord with manicured lawns and 500 uniform homes.

It’s also located in the Garnet Valley School District, which costs Santore about $6,000 each year in property taxes.

“We have not been unreasonable with our approach. We’re not adverse to good education. We’ve been there. We’ve benefited,” said Santore. “I have nothing against educators; my daughters are educators. But as a guy who managed a health-care organization, I can tell you, you don’t give a blank check to anybody. There’s accountability. You can’t do that and continue to have a viable economy.”

There are about 7,000 members in the 55+ Coalition, adding up to a good amount of political clout.

“What we found early on, legislators did not want to deal with it because it’s a hot potato,” Santore said.

“The other thing is, I hate to say it, but we found so many of our citizens who are affected by it really didn’t know what was going on. All they knew was their tax bill was going up. We spent a lot of effort educating our community with newsletters, fliers, developing an e-mail mailing list.”

Whether or not legislators and taxpayers are paying attention, the property-tax situation in Pennsylvania is an issue that needs action now, Santore said.

“A lot of people have been forced out of their homes, and it’s gotten worse, and it’s not just confined to the seniors,” he said.

Informal beginnings

The 55+ Coalition originally came together to protest the now-infamous legislative pay raise of 2005, which was approved in a late-night vote that spurred a whirlwind of voter backlash.

“I thought that was an opportune time to pull together. I knew of these other communities, and I just reached out to them,” said Santore. “We had a representative from each community, and as I remember, we immediately jumped into the task of getting to our lawmakers and voicing our anger. We met with them individually, we sent letters, we held a petition drive.”

The variety of skill sets contributed by the members helped the growing coalition, Santore said.

“People brought different perspectives and backgrounds to the table, and they were all helpful because they had all been in different lines of work. They were all good and not self-serving,” he said.

He realized his own experience as a hospital administrator translated well into community activism.

“I managed to spend a lot of my time on the state level and national level dealing with politicians and staffs, being able to testify on different issues of concern of our industry,” said Santore.

“I found while I was not naive then or now to think a few voices can make a tremendous difference, I find most people will complain but won’t do anything and won’t work at it,” he said.

The coalition attended rallies in Harrisburg and at the Delaware County Courthouse to protest the nighttime pay raise.

“Basically, what we said is we weren’t being unreasonable ... With the legislators, our point of view was, you’re entitled to make a decent living, however, you don’t do it this way. You don’t do things in the dead of night behind close doors and not visible,” he said.

In November of 2005, Gov. Ed Rendell signed a law repealing the controversial pay raises. Some legislators opted to return the bonuses they received in the form of unvouchered expenses.

“It was not because of us so much, but because of the outcry across the state, and they stayed away from it ever since,” he said.

“I guess that experience emboldened us a bit. It was not only us. What you found was (that) on a statewide basis, the same thing was happening. There was an awakening of taxpayers, groups and organizations who began to take notice … and consider other things that are of importance,” said Santore.

Taking it statewide

From there, the coalition decided to shift its focus to property-tax reform and funding for local school districts.

“What we found was that if there is a right of passage that occurs every spring, it’s your property tax goes up. You can count on it. In some parts of the state, it goes up out of sight,” Santore said.

By reaching out to other groups across the state through the Internet, the coalition teamed up with other grassroots organizations that were advocating for property-tax reform.

“All of the sudden, you had the emergence of these groups. It was an exciting thing because of the fact that these are just average folks. We’re not professional lobbyists who have an ax to grind that accrues to our personal or financial benefit,” he said.

These groups now belong to the umbrella group Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayers Associations, a network of 30 grassroots taxpayer organizations with a total membership of roughly 700,000 people.

“(The PTCA) packages statewide stuff, compiles e-mail lists, and gives support and encouragement to small groups who were upset across the state and wanted to get involved,” Santore said.

“While it did not negate what (the 55+ Coalition is) doing at a local level, we still felt … networking with the statewide organization would do a variety of things, including giving us more information about what’s going on in Harrisburg and linking us with other groups in state,” Santore said.

The PTCA connects with other taxpayers without nearby local groups through the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition, headed by David Baldinger.

The Web and e-mail based group’s Web site gets about 175-200 hits a day.

“I have subscribers from all over the state and local groups from in the area,” said Baldinger, a Berks County resident.

A group out of Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne County was the most recent organization to join the PTCA about six weeks ago, Baldinger said.

“We have a large number of supporters, but not enough to pressure the legislators. We’re going to keep building until the legislators have to listen to us. Considering how much we’ve grown, we hope to have a lot more success,” he said.

Pushing reform

Santore said the property tax rebate from slot machines isn’t enough to be considered reform.

“We did get a small rebate this past year, I think out here it came out to $250, but what good is it if your taxes go up X amount every year, which they do? You’re always behind the ball,” he said.

PTCA, PTCC and the 55+ Coalition are outspoken supporters of HB 1275, or the School Property Tax Elimination Act of 2007, introduced by state Rep. Sam Rohrer, R-Berks.

The controversial plan would completely eliminate property taxes, but would cost taxpayers extra sales tax on goods and services that are currently tax-free, such as accounting bills or dry cleaning fees.

The Rendell administration has said it would hurt low-income families on tight budgets and would not generate enough money to offset the lost property-tax revenue.

Opponents also say that Pennsylvania businesses would suffer with a broader sales tax when consumers flee to border states, such as Delaware, for tax-free shopping and services.

Supporters insist that savings from eliminated property taxes would offset the broader sales tax, and would increase fairness since everyone would contribute.

HB 1275 has been in the appropriations committee since September 2007.

Teamed with fellow members of the PTCA, the 55+ Coalition participated in a rally that drew hundreds to Harrisburg last June to show their support of HB 1275.

“We worked long and hard to support that legislation, and we really had reason to believe we had a good chance of getting that bill through the House because of the intensity and volume of what was happening across the state. People were saying they just can’t continue to pay escalating property taxes anymore,” said Santore.

“People came up from across the state and told the human story of what they’re faced with. Some had to give up their home after being there for 40 years. This thing is not only confined to just seniors … young couples can’t afford to buy new homes, or are paying $9,000, $10,000 in property taxes. How long could you go on, even in a good school system?

“The sad part was that like so many things, and especially in the history of property tax reform, in attempts to reform what is really an archaic system, it became a political hot potato,” he said.

“It’s not that we’re turning around to do anything that would hurt quality education, but like in any organization or institution … there are budgets and there are budgets. What can we do that’s less expensive, maybe we don’t need too many frills. Let’s focus on basics with education, good teachers, salaries, we’re supportive of that.”

A call for action

Santore admits he’s not optimistic for property tax reform to become a reality anytime soon.

However, his pessimism should not be confused for a white flag of surrender.

“I learned in all the positions I held, pretty much you’re foolish if you think you can divorce yourself from the political situation and not be involved,” he said.

People are struggling with property taxes, a reality that shouldn’t be ignored, Santore said.

“You can’t get away from the fact we don’t have the money,” he said.

“The economic downturn and the credit crisis we’re in, all of these things were seen, they were predicted … you just can’t put your head in the sand. You have to turn around and look at what is happening year after year with escalation of property taxes and impact it has on people, and at some point, just like we’re seeing now with the subprime mortgage lending, the bubble has to burst.”

With the 2008 legislative session recently ending and Election Day still a few weeks away, the 55+ Coalition is in a holding pattern.

“We’re focusing on the election, waiting to see who is elected and when the new session starts we’ll take it from there. We’re supporting our lawmakers who support our efforts. Statewide our efforts are to take those who have not been supportive of our efforts to reform property tax and get them out of office.”

Santore said he hopes more people will become involved with property tax issues.

“People feel powerless. What can I do? I can’t do anything, I can’t fight system,” he said. “I feel one thing we’ve been able to as a coalition has been to educate people in a variety of ways, to let them know there is a venue or vehicle through us that we can express their feelings.”