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The Orion Township treasurer has made a contract offer to the school district and the issue will be on the May 18 board meeting agenda.<\/p>\nThe Lake Orion school district is challenging excessive fees charged by Orion Township for tax collection. After trading new proposals the two sides are not close to reaching a resolution.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Heidi Mercer and Andrea Curtis, as\u00adsistant superintendent of Business and Finance, addressed the Orion Township board on May 4 and voiced concerns that the district is overpaying for tax collection services by the township.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a concern that we have tried to address privately, but the township\u2019s actions have forced me to address this publicly,\u201d Mercer told the board. \u201cThe township board has imposed excessive fees on all of the entities it collects taxes for. As far as we understand, we are the only entity that has not conceded to the unreasonable fee increase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year the district entered into the one-year agreement to pay the township $256,054 for collection of its summer property tax levy, an increase from $64,000 the prior year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe district accepted the township\u2019s cost figures last year because the information available and the time constraints imposed by the tax collection cycle left little opportunity for negotiation with the township board,\u201d Mercer wrote in a letter to the township on April 23.<\/p>\n
Orion Township Treasurer Matt Pfei\u00adffer said that what the district have been paying for collection services does not meet the necessary costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reference to prior fees of approximately $64,000 annually also requires context,\u201d Pfeiffer wrote in a response to the Lake Orion school board. \u201cWhile that figure may reflect historical practice, it does not account for the fact that operational costs, including staffing, technology, compliance, and infrastructure, have increased consistently over time. The absence of prior adjustments or formal cost allocation methodologies does not eliminate the existence of those costs today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The township also contracts with Rochester and Pontiac schools, Oakland Community College and the Oakland Intermediate School District for tax collection. Pfeiffer said none of them have contacted him with any financial issues and they have all signed new three-year contracts with the township.<\/p>\n
The district and the township have engaged independent third-party analysis to justify their positions, with administration fees being a main point of contention.<\/p>\n
In an April 10 letter to the treasurer, Mercer said their research showed a tax administration fee of .75% is \u201cnot supportable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pfeiffer responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross Michigan, many municipalities charge the full 1% administration fee authorized under state law,\u201d he said. \u201cBased on the district\u2019s levy, that would equate to approximately $341,000 annually to LOCS. The township\u2019s proposed structure ($264,000) is below that level and grounded in actual operational cost analysis, not arbitrary benchmarking.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Orion Township treasurer has made a contract offer to the school district and the issue will be on the May 18 board meeting agenda.<\/p>\n
file photo<\/p>\n
The treasurer said he was not willing to waive administrative fees to the school district and have township residents cover the cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you say we don\u2019t want to pay for this service we want you to raise taxes on all of the taxpayers in the township by about $500,000 to cover it so we don\u2019t have to pay for it, I have a real issue with that,\u201d said Pfeiffer.<\/p>\n
Pfeiffer said he \u201cbegrudgingly\u201d made a new offer prior to the district three days before Mercer and Curtis came before the township board.<\/p>\n
He said the township offered a one-year agreement at .25% administration fee \u2013 instead of the previously agreed upon amount of .75%. The offer also included a commitment to undertake a new cost study and share those results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave them exactly what they told us they wanted and rather than accept that, they responded with a contract that had several language changes to it and essentially created their own contract and I will not accept it,\u201d said Pfeiffer. \u201cThey have a contract with the exact dollar amount they asked for in the same format that they signed last year and they refused to sign that. I am not going to let another entity write a contract for the township.\u201d<\/p>\n
The superintendent made the position of the district clear in her letter to Pfeiffer.<\/p>\n
\u201cLOCS cannot execute the proposed agreement for 2026 given the facts that are now available. As such, we will anticipate that our property tax levy will be billed to the taxpayers as part of the winter tax collections,\u201d Mercer wrote.<\/p>\n
By shifting district tax collection to the winter tax roll, Curtis said the district will need to issue tax anticipation notes to fund op\u00aderations for the remainder of 2026, which includes payroll and essential educational services.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this will result in interest costs, these costs are expected to be significantly less than the quarter million dollar fee de\u00admanded by the township,\u201d she said. \u201cOur job is to protect classroom instruction and student resources so borrowing funds at a lower cost are the steps we now need to take due to the treasurer\u2019s actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The treasurer said a decision needs to be made before the next board meeting on May 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust as they are responsible for their 6,000 students and all their staff, I am responsible for the tax collection and the tax dollars of 40,000 residents,\u201d said Pfeiffer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lake Orion school district is challenging excessive fees charged by Orion Township for tax collection. After trading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[133965,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-321336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-lake-orion-orion-township-school-district-taxes","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}