Property owners in the Williamsport Area School District will be paying an additional $86 for a total of $1,810 on each $100,000 of their property’s assessed value after the district approved its 2026-27 budget this week. Real estate taxes will increase from 17.24 mills to 18.01 for the upcoming fiscal year. The earned income tax rate will be 1.5 percent and the real estate Transfer tax, 0.5 of 1 percent.

Business Administrator Brandy Smith said that one of the drivers of the increase was the increasing costs of health insurance.

It has been several years since the district has increased their real estate tax rate.

Related to the approval of the budget and real estate millage, the board also approved the Homestead/Farmstead exclusion resolution.

The total exclusion amount for the district was $30,005 or approximately $543.10 per each approved homestead and for an assessed exclusion amount of $15,002 or approximately $271.55 for each approved farmstead approved property for tax year 2026.

“If you own your own home and you live in your home, you can apply for a Farmstead/Homestead exemption,” Smith explained.

The money for the exemptions comes from state gambling funds.

It “trickles back into the districts, and then we distribute amongst all of our properties in our district,” Smith said.

Homestead gets the full amount of the deduction. Farmstead get 50 percent of the deduction. In order to qualify a property must be the owners’ primary residence.

“If you own a bunch of properties, you can only have it on the home that you live in. Or, if you own a vacation home here, but live in Florida, you don’t qualify,” she said.

“It’s for our local taxpayers, and we receive it every year,” she added.

In another tax-related agenda item, the board approves signing the Lycoming County Taxing District Repository Sale Acknowledgement for six properties in the district that have been sold for taxes owed and will now be placed back on the active tax roll. These include the following properties and the total taxes, both district, city and county, owed: vacant land on Sawmill Road, $10,213.33; mobile home in park at 3605 Lycoming Creek Road, $735.43; vacant land at 725 Center St., $5,998.61; vacant land at 729 Center St., $26,627.43; vacant land at 621 Spruce St., $6,359.33; and vacant land at Rafferty land, $1,085.03.