The board will meet at 7 pm tonight at the Lecture Hall of Central Dauphin East High School. CLICK HERE to review the agenda. (To view the agenda, click on the plus sign for 8/11/08, and then click on the plus signs to get details about specific agenda items.) There is one tax issue that will be discussed under New Business – The Administration is recommending the appointment of Berkheimer Tax Administrator as the Earned Income Tax Administrator for the Central Dauphin School District. If approved, Berkheimer would start collecting the two-percent tax starting Jan. 1, 2009. If you're not up to speed on this issue, check out this Gazette post for some background info.

If you live in Lower Paxton Twp., you should have received by now a postcard (pictured) from CD School District asking you not to send school property-tax payments to Diane Bair, LP's elected tax collector, but to a post office box in Bethlehem. T.W. Burger, Patriot-News beat reporter for LP and CD schools, did a good job explaining what’s happening in today’s edition. The change throws a few more moving parts into paying property taxes – school property-tax payments go to a post office box in Bethlehem, and Diane Bair will continue to collect payments for township and county property taxes. The school district having to come up with a creative way to get tax dollars sooner is proof that the system for collecting local taxes in Pennsylvania needs to be put out to pasture. Electing citizens to collect taxes no longer works in many places, like LP. Some help is on the way though. Gov. Ed Rendell signed into law a bill today that will eliminate most local tax collectors for local earned income taxes – that's the 2 percent local tax on paychecks for LP residents. In a typical move by state lawmakers, the deadline for implementing the new setup for collecting wage taxes isn't until January 2012, according to an article published by a Chambersburg paper (scroll down to bottom of article). Unfortunately, the new law does not address the collection of school property taxes.

* The Lower Paxton Twp. supervisors will conduct a workshop meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, May 13 at 4:00 pm, and a special business meeting at 6:30 pm to discuss and act on solid waste and recyclables collection bids. Both meetings will be held at the Municipal Center, 425 Prince Street. CLICK HERE to view meeting agendas. The most interesting item on the agenda for the 4 pm meeting is a discussion with Central Dauphin School District on tax-collection services provided by the embattled Capital Tax Collection Bureau (CTCB). Local governments throughout the Harrisburg area are concerned that CTCB isn't divvying up local tax dollars in an efficient and accurate way. CD school board has voted to can CTCB, and now Lower Paxton Twp. and other municipalities have to decide if they are going to follow the school district's lead. Last week West Hanover Township decided to continue working with CTCB. The school district and municipalities using different collection services could make an already complicated process even harder to manage, in my opinion. Problems with tax collection are being experienced statewide – not surprising when you consider that Pennsylvania has 501 public school districts and over 1,500 municipalities. The Patriot-News editorial board today gave its take on the best way for Pennsylvania to streamline the collection of local earned income taxes. Developing story ... * The Lower Paxton Township Authority last week voted to seek bids for a sewer-line project along Linglestown Road on the eastern side of the village. Last summer the township's consulting engineer estimated the repairs would cost over $500,000.