Do you know what a mill is? Do you know how many mills of real estate tax you pay to Lower Macungie Township, Lehigh County & the East Penn School District?
How exactly the assessed value of your home (as determined by the County) and millage rates are used to compute your tax bill?
The word mill means a money amount equal to 1/10 of one cent. One mill is represented in decimal form as .001. Each year the three taxing bodies, Township, County and School District establish millage rates for the upcoming year.
Currently they are:
Lower Macungie Township – .33 mills (0.00033)
Lehigh County – 3.75 mills (0.00375)
East Penn School District – 17 mills (0.01721)
2015
Lower Macungie Residents’ Tax Millage and Taxes
Your property values are determined by Lehigh County. That assessed value is multiplied by the millage rates above to determine the amount of tax you owe on your property. The chart below shows the values of three properties, what the assessed value is for each of those properties and the taxes you would pay to each of the three taxing jurisdictions.
*Note: Lehigh County does not have an earned income tax or other source of funding other than a property tax.
On your township bill you get an additional reduction. Lower Macungie Township instituted a Homestead reduction program in 2015. This applies to all eligible households (must be owner occupied residential) enrolled in the program. (nearly 90% of eligible residents are enrolled). Currently the reduction is set to 25% of medium value.
This means all eligible households saw their assessments (for the purpose of calculating LMT tax bills) reduced by 58,000 since the median assessed value last year was 232,900.
Okay, now that you have all the figures and see just how small a % of your tax bill goes to Lower Macungie Township, below are some of the services you get from the township for your dollars.
Public Works – Including maintenance of 131 MILES of township roads.
Winter road maintenance and materials * Yard waste collection – including free mulch recycling center * Road maintenance-crack sealing, asphalt repairs and materials * Storm sewer inlet maintenance * Street sweeping * Leaf collection * Asphalt paving overlays and materials for 131 MILES of township streets * Street and traffic sign materials, maintenance and replacement * Annual traffic line striping and all intersection markings * Traffic light installations & maintenance
Parks, Civic & Recreation
* Maintenance of 28! township parks * This includes 20 basketball courts, 17 baseball fields, , 15 tennis courts, 13 soccer fields, 5 volleyball courts *FREE public library, township community center *township pool.
An aggressive 30 million dollar 5 year capital plan.
Including items such as: A new aerial truck for the Fire Dept.* New Dump Truck and new 1 ton pickup and plows to further improve winter snow removal times among other benefits* New street sweeper* Video equipped van for monitoring sewer lines *continued addressing of federally mandated inflow/infiltration issues *Sauerkraut extension *Land acquisition and preservation *Park security cameras *Bridge repair
60+ township employees who:
Staff the pool, community center, run rec programs, pave the streets, mow the grass, administration and so much more!
This seems like a lot. But even this represents just a small fraction of the costs to run a township and the value you get for your tax dollars in Lower Mac and the efforts we make to stretch every dollar as far as we can.