Most school districts to limit tax increases

Martha Raffaele on the tax increases for school districts, noting most will be "limiting" increases within the index. The index allows districts to increase taxes by 3.4 to 5.5 percent without voter referendum.

One critic of the law, Matthew Brouillette, of the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, said voters should be allowed to approve any property-tax increase, no matter how small.

Full data from PDE indicates that

233 Districts adopted resolutions to stay within index
103 Districts submitted preliminary budget with tax increase within index (52 of which were granted exemptions to exceed index without referendum)

4 Districts with missing information or not subject to requirements

123 Districts will increase taxes above index using referendum exemptions

38 Districts have preliminary budgets above referendum and exemptions (35 were already granted exemptions for part of the tax increase). These are the only districts that will be holding "back-end referendum" - meaning 7.6% of school districts' voters get to have a say on property tax increases.