Carmichaels Area school officials are pushing back on a misleading campaign attack mailer sent out by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania incorrectly claiming the district imposed a new tax in 2024 and then “raised our taxes through the roof” the following year.
A mailer attacking Republican state Senate candidate Al Buchtan claims that he “voted to start a new tax” as a member of the Carmichaels Area School Board in June 2024 and then “raised the tax 100% the next year!”
The other side of the mailer shows a red arrow with the word TAXES written on it blowing through a home’s roof, implying that property taxes have increased in the district.
Another GOP mailer also claims Buchtan and the school board “raised our taxes … twice! Two years in a row.”
However, the school board did not impose any new taxes in 2024 and has not raised the property tax millage rate since 2019, according to meeting minutes. A $5 occupational privilege tax the state Republican Party apparently is citing had been in effect since at least 2013, according to board minutes, and likely longer than that.
“That is false,” Carmichaels Superintendent Amy Todd said Friday. “We did not impose a new tax.”
The state Republican Party’s mailer that claims the “new tax” doubled in June 2025 appears to cite a motion that the district’s occupational privilege tax increased from $5 to $10 that year. But Todd said that change cited in the motion was an error because the overall $10 occupational...
/Uncategorized Carmichaels Area school officials are pushing back on a misleading campaign attack mailer sent out by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania incorrectly claiming the district impos...