For the first time since 2014, Moon Township residents will be paying more property taxes to the township in 2026.
The Board of Supervisor Monday night approved the township’s 2026 budget, which calls for an increase in the millage rate from 2.74 to 4.28 – a hike of 56%.
The additional revenue is needed to cover expenses associated with the general fund budget, which totals $20,754,968. Personnel-related expenses account for nearly two of every three dollars earmarked to be spent in that budget.
Within that 4.28 millage figure, .29 mills will be earmarked for purchasing firefighting equipment and the rest is for general purposes. The board plans to use .75 mills – or $1,733,105 – for road improvements, including potential sidewalks.
Of the $20,754,968 in general fund expenses, $8,026,046 – or 39% — will be spent within the police department.
In the new budget, for every $1,000 of assessed value, a property owner would pay $4.28 in real estate taxes to the township.
According to township officials, the median home value in the township is $160,000. So, the owner of that home would pay $687.37 in 2026 compared with $440.04 that was owed in 2025. For a more expensive piece of property – for example, one that is valued at $350,000 — the owner would see township real estate taxes climb from $959 to $1,498 in 2026.
That doesn’t include the Allegheny County or Moon Area School District tax bills.
According to township records, the last time the township raised its millage rate was in 2014, when it was increased from 2.48 to 2.74. It remained unchanged since then.
Moon Township supervisors on Monday increased the township’s millage rate to 4.28 for 2026 — the first increase since 2014. (Graphic courtesy of Moon Township administration)
David Bachman, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said Tuesday the board “tried so hard” to avoid increasing property taxes.
“We’ve known over the last few years that we were under financial pressure,” Bachman said. “But we wanted to do whatever we could to prevent or delay the tax increase.
“The budget process has been crying wolf for several years, and the wolf finally came.”
Bachman said the township’s reserves had been decreasing over the past number of years and the fact that federal COVID relief funds finally ran out only added to the problem. So that left less funding available to take care of “things that needed done,” Bachman said.
In addition, some property values have dropped in recent years, particularly in office buildings, which have seen increased vacancies since the pandemic.
“The office buildings are no longer fully occupied and some of them are actually empty,” Bachman said. “They’re not worth as much as they were before, so their assessed value is going down.”
Bachman said homeowners also have been appealing their assessed values and some of them have seen those values reduced, which means less in the way of property tax revenue.
“Fortunately for us we’ve had new development,” Bachman said. “That probably more than anything else has kept us from having to increase taxes for well over a decade. But at some point, that doesn’t keep up with what’s happened to our real estate values.”
Bachman said he believes that if property owners within the township looked at the budget numbers, they would agree that a tax increase was the board’s only option.
“Frankly, and I said this during the budget process, I think it would have been irresponsible if we didn’t (raise taxes),” he said. “We didn’t want to let our reserves get down to a dangerous level. We want our township to be solvent and to be financially strong. And to not have enacted this tax increase would have caused us to approach the absolute minimum reserves that are required.”
Richard Zollinger, a township resident who attended Monday night’s board meeting, said the increased millage rate was “more than what I thought it would have been.”
“But that’s one tax that over the years I haven’t minded paying. You see the results – the fire, police and other services the township provides.”
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