East Penn School Board Passes Measure Rebuking NIZ Law

The Monday night became the latest governing body to pass a resolution opposing a measure out of Harrisburg commonly known as the NIZ bill. The NIZ bill, written by State Sen. Pat Browne, will divert an as-of-yet undetermined amount of earned income tax from the district to the hockey arena in Allentown.

The board passed, by an 8-1 vote, a resolution putting its displeasure with Browne’s law on the record. voted against the resolution.

The resolution approved last night was proposed by School Director Julian Stolz at the board’s Feb. 20 meeting. In the intervening two weeks, Board President Charles Ballard “tweaked” the language of Stolz’s original resolution and it was Ballard’s version that the board voted on.

Stolz said that he had no problem with the way Ballard massaged the language of his resolution. “The spirit is still the same,” he said. “This is a horrendous idea by the legislature in Harrisburg.”

Stolz then pointed out that Browne is running to be a delegate to the national convention and that taxpayers would have an opportunity to express their opinion on Browne’s legislation at the polls.

Browne’s NIZ law, passed in 2009, created a 130-acre Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ) and mandates that the earned income taxes paid by residents who work in the zone will be diverted for one year to the $158 million arena project.

According to a report on Lehigh Valley Live, the exact amount of money that East Penn will lose as a result of the NIZ won’t be available until April. Overall, the report says, at least $550,000 in combined tax dollars will be pulled from municipalities and school districts in and around Allentown.

Rhodes said that he voted against the resolution because the law is already on he books and it’s really too late to do anything about it.

“I think our mistake was not examining the law before it was actually passed,” he said. “Now, I am going to wait and see how it plays out. I’ll wait to see if the hockey arena really does benefit the economy of the whole area.

“I feel remiss that I did not see it before Allentown actually put it in action,” he said. “I want to see if it plays out the way that you all expect it to play out or if it plays out the way our delightful Senator Brown says it will play out.”