From the Somerset County Daily American. Thanks to the emailer who sent the original tip.
Study: Schools fall short on special education funding
By VICKI ROCK Daily American Staff Writer Friday, February 13, 2009 11:34 PM EST
Most school districts in Pennsylvania, including all those in Somerset County, are not spending enough on special education to meet the students' basic needs, according to a new study.
Augenblick, Palaich and Associates of Denver conducted the study for the Education Law Center, Disability Rights Network and the Arc of Pennsylvania, an advocacy organization for people with disabilities.
The costing-out study found that 391 of the state's 501 districts are spending less than an adequate amount on special education. It is a shortfall of $380 million annually, or $1,947 per special education student.
The consultant determined that the base cost for the average student was $8,003 in 2005-06, not including food, transportation, debt service and capital costs. The additional base cost for an average special education student is $10,404, bringing the total to $18,407. The report is to be the subject of a hearing before the House subcommittee on special education.
In Somerset County, Windber Area School District spent the most money on special education students. The report states that Windber spends $8,287 per special education student in addition to the basic education subsidy.
“We try to look at special education a little different, not as a different program,” said Superintendent Rick Huffman. “We see it as a different way of students learning and the different way we provide education. We have adaptive learning for all students from the most challenged to the most capable. We provide an environment for students to achieve. We look at how we can provide the best learning environment for individual students.”
In the next two years, the Windber district is going to look at various issues regarding student needs, he said. Administrators will partner with Windber Medical Center to take a holistic approach to learning, looking at issues including child development, nutrition and sleep deprivation.
“I believe we all have the best interests of the students in mind,” Huffman said. “The money that we have has to be spent effectively and appropriately for the students' needs.”
Somerset Area School District spends $6,885 per special education student in addition to the basic education subsidy, according to the report. Rebecca Bittner, special education director for the Somerset district, said the state and federal government make many mandates about special education, but then under-fund programs to support the students' needs.
“The local district does a good job of meeting the needs without the state and federal funding,” she said. “Special education can be very expensive - some students have multiple disabilities. I've been here since 2003, and I'd say the local school board does a good job of meeting the needs of special education students.”
M.J. Bartelmay Jr., president of the Arc of Pennsylvania, said Gov. Edward Rendell's proposed budget calls for no increase in state funding for special education. The basic education subsidy for students without disabilities includes a 5.7 percent increase.
“My son has Down syndrome and relies on special education,” Bartelmay said in a release. “With this budget, the governor is telling me my son isn't important.”
This budget in fiscal year 2008-09 included a 1.7 percent increase for special education, while basic education received 5.5 percent.
Michael Race, press secretary for the Department of Education, said the department is aware of the study and is reviewing it. They hoped to be briefed by the Education Law Center.
“I can't comment on specific findings until we are briefed,” he said. “The Department of Education shares the concern that all students are provided the adequate resources for learning, including special education students.”
The full report is available online at www.elc-pa.org. Download the report and executive summary here.
Showing posts with label state funding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label state funding. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Pennsylvania Budget Pains
From the BCCT.
Pa. shortfall promises big test for gov, lawmakers
The Associated Press
As the nation's economy was plodding to a halt and layoffs were accelerating last summer, Pennsylvania state government's budget shortfall was already growing.
It started in May, when the state recorded its first of what is now nine consecutive monthly shortfalls, and is now so large that it begs comparison to the handful of budget crises that rank as the worst of the past 40 years.
And it promises to entangle Gov. Ed Rendell and state legislators in a protracted battle that is certain to stretch into the summer and possibly into the campaigns for the 2010 elections.
While the Democratic governor and legislative leaders of both parties are pledging to work together in a bipartisan way and erase the shortfall without a major tax increase, some observers question whether they grasp the full extent of the problem or the difficult steps that will have to be taken.
"This was created by an economic storm that is sweeping across the state and nation," said Michael L. Young, who studies Pennsylvania state government and runs a Harrisburg-based opinion research firm. "This one is big time. This one is the real thing."
The budget gap has rocketed to Topic No. 1 on an agenda already choked with unresolved issues: crumbling highways and bridges, a growing number of uninsured and skyrocketing electric bills.
Sensitive decisions over who will pay more and who will get less are likely to expose political fissures, as well as divisions between a second-term governor who leaves office in less than two years and legislators with their own political futures to consider.
Rendell and legislators didn't help themselves last summer when they approved a $28.3 billion budget that increased spending by 4 percent and relied on more than $550 million from one-time sources to prop up spending _ even as some lawmakers and senior staff quietly predicted a shortfall of a billion dollars or more.
Rendell now projects that revenues will lag $2.3 billion _ or nearly 8 percent _ behind expectations when this fiscal year ends on June 30. Maintaining the same services and subsidies in the 2009-10 fiscal year would create an even bigger shortfall after inflation is figured in, Rendell and legislators predict.
So far, Rendell has sought to freeze $500 million in spending and has threatened to lay off state employees unless he gets money-saving concessions from labor unions.
On Wednesday, when he presents his 2009-10 budget to a joint session of the state Senate and House of Representatives, Rendell is expected to lay out his vision for how state operations should make the painful adjustment to the national recession.
The governor is expected to proposed shrinking or eliminating programs. He will scour state accounts for reserves. And he is looking to tax previously untaxed activities, such as sales of chewing tobacco and cigars and the production of natural gas.
All of this has legislators and others recalling the shortfalls of 1991, 1977 and 1971, when budgets were passed with massive tax increases only after events such as long stalemates, high-stakes court challenges, melees on the House floor and state employees going unpaid or getting laid off.
"I think clearly it's going to be one of the biggest challenges we've faced in Harrisburg in a number of years," said Allegheny County Sen. Jay Costa, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
The 1991 budget battle is stuck in the memories of many in the Capitol.
In December 1990, then-Gov. Robert P. Casey's budget director, Michael Hershock, announced that the state was staring at a $1 billion shortfall. However, he dismissed the need for a major tax increase.
Less than two months later, Casey proposed $1.7 billion in tax increases. In August 1991, Casey signed a budget with $3.3 billion in new taxes.
Barbara Hafer, who was the state's auditor general and the unsuccessful Republican challenger to Casey's re-election in 1990, said the solution was as bad as the problem.
Legislators, she said, held the budget hostage by demanding money for their pet projects before they would vote for a tax package that they viewed as a political risk.
This time around, legislative leaders must exercise fiscal discipline, said Hafer, who later was elected as state treasurer.
"What is it going to take to pass that budget? That's the question you have to ask," Hafer said last week. "Legislators say, 'I need something to run on. I need (money for) my bridge, my street, my school district, my Little League, my baseball field, my fire department' and that becomes expensive."
In 1971, legislators finally closed a massive shortfall by passing the state's first income tax after a budget impasse that lasted more than a year.
Young warned of a repeat. Legislators may pull out all the stops this year to avoid a broad-based tax increase _ only to find that a still-worsening economy leaves them with no choice in 2010, just months before voters elect a new governor and nine out of 10 legislators, Young said.
"The prospect of a major tax increase in a major gubernatorial year is almost beyond imaginable," Young said. "This is a doomsday scenario that we may see."
If they wonder whether to vote for a major tax increase, legislators can consider this: Research by Young and Franklin & Marshall College pollster G. Terry Madonna found that voters are unlikely to take revenge on legislators because they supported a tax increase.
Re-election rates reached above 95 percent in the elections following tax increases in 1983 and 1991 _ leading Madonna and Young to call it the "great tax vote myth."
Pa. shortfall promises big test for gov, lawmakers
The Associated Press
As the nation's economy was plodding to a halt and layoffs were accelerating last summer, Pennsylvania state government's budget shortfall was already growing.
It started in May, when the state recorded its first of what is now nine consecutive monthly shortfalls, and is now so large that it begs comparison to the handful of budget crises that rank as the worst of the past 40 years.
And it promises to entangle Gov. Ed Rendell and state legislators in a protracted battle that is certain to stretch into the summer and possibly into the campaigns for the 2010 elections.
While the Democratic governor and legislative leaders of both parties are pledging to work together in a bipartisan way and erase the shortfall without a major tax increase, some observers question whether they grasp the full extent of the problem or the difficult steps that will have to be taken.
"This was created by an economic storm that is sweeping across the state and nation," said Michael L. Young, who studies Pennsylvania state government and runs a Harrisburg-based opinion research firm. "This one is big time. This one is the real thing."
The budget gap has rocketed to Topic No. 1 on an agenda already choked with unresolved issues: crumbling highways and bridges, a growing number of uninsured and skyrocketing electric bills.
Sensitive decisions over who will pay more and who will get less are likely to expose political fissures, as well as divisions between a second-term governor who leaves office in less than two years and legislators with their own political futures to consider.
Rendell and legislators didn't help themselves last summer when they approved a $28.3 billion budget that increased spending by 4 percent and relied on more than $550 million from one-time sources to prop up spending _ even as some lawmakers and senior staff quietly predicted a shortfall of a billion dollars or more.
Rendell now projects that revenues will lag $2.3 billion _ or nearly 8 percent _ behind expectations when this fiscal year ends on June 30. Maintaining the same services and subsidies in the 2009-10 fiscal year would create an even bigger shortfall after inflation is figured in, Rendell and legislators predict.
So far, Rendell has sought to freeze $500 million in spending and has threatened to lay off state employees unless he gets money-saving concessions from labor unions.
On Wednesday, when he presents his 2009-10 budget to a joint session of the state Senate and House of Representatives, Rendell is expected to lay out his vision for how state operations should make the painful adjustment to the national recession.
The governor is expected to proposed shrinking or eliminating programs. He will scour state accounts for reserves. And he is looking to tax previously untaxed activities, such as sales of chewing tobacco and cigars and the production of natural gas.
All of this has legislators and others recalling the shortfalls of 1991, 1977 and 1971, when budgets were passed with massive tax increases only after events such as long stalemates, high-stakes court challenges, melees on the House floor and state employees going unpaid or getting laid off.
"I think clearly it's going to be one of the biggest challenges we've faced in Harrisburg in a number of years," said Allegheny County Sen. Jay Costa, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
The 1991 budget battle is stuck in the memories of many in the Capitol.
In December 1990, then-Gov. Robert P. Casey's budget director, Michael Hershock, announced that the state was staring at a $1 billion shortfall. However, he dismissed the need for a major tax increase.
Less than two months later, Casey proposed $1.7 billion in tax increases. In August 1991, Casey signed a budget with $3.3 billion in new taxes.
Barbara Hafer, who was the state's auditor general and the unsuccessful Republican challenger to Casey's re-election in 1990, said the solution was as bad as the problem.
Legislators, she said, held the budget hostage by demanding money for their pet projects before they would vote for a tax package that they viewed as a political risk.
This time around, legislative leaders must exercise fiscal discipline, said Hafer, who later was elected as state treasurer.
"What is it going to take to pass that budget? That's the question you have to ask," Hafer said last week. "Legislators say, 'I need something to run on. I need (money for) my bridge, my street, my school district, my Little League, my baseball field, my fire department' and that becomes expensive."
In 1971, legislators finally closed a massive shortfall by passing the state's first income tax after a budget impasse that lasted more than a year.
Young warned of a repeat. Legislators may pull out all the stops this year to avoid a broad-based tax increase _ only to find that a still-worsening economy leaves them with no choice in 2010, just months before voters elect a new governor and nine out of 10 legislators, Young said.
"The prospect of a major tax increase in a major gubernatorial year is almost beyond imaginable," Young said. "This is a doomsday scenario that we may see."
If they wonder whether to vote for a major tax increase, legislators can consider this: Research by Young and Franklin & Marshall College pollster G. Terry Madonna found that voters are unlikely to take revenge on legislators because they supported a tax increase.
Re-election rates reached above 95 percent in the elections following tax increases in 1983 and 1991 _ leading Madonna and Young to call it the "great tax vote myth."
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
State Health Insurance?
From the BCCT.
Pa. school boards resist state health insurance
By MARTHA RAFFAELE
The Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. - The spiraling cost of health care is a constant lament of Pennsylvania school boards whenever they draw up their annual budgets.
Their consternation, however, wasn't enough to overcome their skepticism during the 2007-08 legislative session about a proposal that Gov. Ed Rendell said could reduce those expenses , and rein in property-tax increases.
With great fanfare, Rendell in September 2007 advocated legislation to create a special benefits board to look into establishing a statewide health insurance plan for all of the state's school districts. A handful of other states have adopted similar approaches.
A bill was introduced in the House, but it stalled in committee and died when the General Assembly's session concluded last month.
A statewide plan would help control school employee health benefit costs by spreading the risk more widely, managing benefits better and lowering school administrative costs, Rendell said. In a trade-off, employee unions would give up the right to bargain for better health insurance benefits during contract negotiations.
Rendell has said school districts spend about $1.5 billion annually on medical and prescription drug insurance, or $1 out of every $6 in school property taxes collected. A 2004 legislative study said school districts could save up to $585 million a year, and more in later years, under a statewide insurance plan.
Many districts now buy individual group policies, while some districts have formed regional insurance-buying consortiums and others buy separate policies for professional and service employees.
House Democrats, who control the flow of legislation in that chamber, didn't advance the measure because of resistance from their home school districts, said Bob Caton, a caucus spokesman.
"Members heard from their districts that they were already participating in a regional group insurance program and were afraid their costs would increase and benefits lessen," Caton said.
Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo called that argument a "stalling tactic."
"From a business perspective, the opposite makes far more sense: If we aggregate our purchasing power, we can buy more for less money," he said. "The truth is that we won't know for sure until we get the data, and that's why the bill makes it possible to determine whether it's feasible to run a statewide system and , if it is , launch it."
Although Rendell has said the state would pay up to half of the year-to-year increase in health insurance premiums, the bill imposes certain limits, said Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials.
"When you look at the details, the state's share is capped," Himes said. "So, if in a year there gets to be extraordinary rate increases, then school districts are left holding the financial bag."
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association saw problems with the benefits board's composition, lobbyist Tim Allwein said.
The House bill initially called for a 12-member board, drawing four members each from unionized school employees and school boards. But later versions of the bill expanded the board's membership to 20 and gave school employees 10 seats.
"If you essentially have a plan where you've got employees calling the shots regarding their benefits, you're not going to get a plan that saves the most money," Allwein said.
The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, supported the legislation. Association president James Testerman said his group did not push for expanding union membership on the board.
Testerman also disputed PSBA's contention that the union would hold sway over the board. Testerman noted that the state also has a role as a school employer, and the board would include legislative members.
Additionally, any decision to implement either a statewide plan or an alternative plan to reduce health-care costs would require at least 15 votes under the bill.
"Even if all of labor sticks together, they still need to go and find five other votes," Testerman said.
Ardo said the administration expects to renew its push in the upcoming legislative session that begins in January.
"Particularly when the economy is as bad as it is today, it's more important than ever that we figure out ways to save money for taxpayers while making government work smarter," he said.
,,,
Martha Raffaele covers education and health care for The Associated Press in Harrisburg. She can be reached at mraffaele(at)ap.org.
Pa. school boards resist state health insurance
By MARTHA RAFFAELE
The Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. - The spiraling cost of health care is a constant lament of Pennsylvania school boards whenever they draw up their annual budgets.
Their consternation, however, wasn't enough to overcome their skepticism during the 2007-08 legislative session about a proposal that Gov. Ed Rendell said could reduce those expenses , and rein in property-tax increases.
With great fanfare, Rendell in September 2007 advocated legislation to create a special benefits board to look into establishing a statewide health insurance plan for all of the state's school districts. A handful of other states have adopted similar approaches.
A bill was introduced in the House, but it stalled in committee and died when the General Assembly's session concluded last month.
A statewide plan would help control school employee health benefit costs by spreading the risk more widely, managing benefits better and lowering school administrative costs, Rendell said. In a trade-off, employee unions would give up the right to bargain for better health insurance benefits during contract negotiations.
Rendell has said school districts spend about $1.5 billion annually on medical and prescription drug insurance, or $1 out of every $6 in school property taxes collected. A 2004 legislative study said school districts could save up to $585 million a year, and more in later years, under a statewide insurance plan.
Many districts now buy individual group policies, while some districts have formed regional insurance-buying consortiums and others buy separate policies for professional and service employees.
House Democrats, who control the flow of legislation in that chamber, didn't advance the measure because of resistance from their home school districts, said Bob Caton, a caucus spokesman.
"Members heard from their districts that they were already participating in a regional group insurance program and were afraid their costs would increase and benefits lessen," Caton said.
Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo called that argument a "stalling tactic."
"From a business perspective, the opposite makes far more sense: If we aggregate our purchasing power, we can buy more for less money," he said. "The truth is that we won't know for sure until we get the data, and that's why the bill makes it possible to determine whether it's feasible to run a statewide system and , if it is , launch it."
Although Rendell has said the state would pay up to half of the year-to-year increase in health insurance premiums, the bill imposes certain limits, said Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials.
"When you look at the details, the state's share is capped," Himes said. "So, if in a year there gets to be extraordinary rate increases, then school districts are left holding the financial bag."
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association saw problems with the benefits board's composition, lobbyist Tim Allwein said.
The House bill initially called for a 12-member board, drawing four members each from unionized school employees and school boards. But later versions of the bill expanded the board's membership to 20 and gave school employees 10 seats.
"If you essentially have a plan where you've got employees calling the shots regarding their benefits, you're not going to get a plan that saves the most money," Allwein said.
The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, supported the legislation. Association president James Testerman said his group did not push for expanding union membership on the board.
Testerman also disputed PSBA's contention that the union would hold sway over the board. Testerman noted that the state also has a role as a school employer, and the board would include legislative members.
Additionally, any decision to implement either a statewide plan or an alternative plan to reduce health-care costs would require at least 15 votes under the bill.
"Even if all of labor sticks together, they still need to go and find five other votes," Testerman said.
Ardo said the administration expects to renew its push in the upcoming legislative session that begins in January.
"Particularly when the economy is as bad as it is today, it's more important than ever that we figure out ways to save money for taxpayers while making government work smarter," he said.
,,,
Martha Raffaele covers education and health care for The Associated Press in Harrisburg. She can be reached at mraffaele(at)ap.org.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Rendell targets budget shortfall
From the BCCT.
Why is it sounding like the budget process is now akin to the RMS Titanic and we're all sitting in the 4th class steerage section waiting for the porter to return with some ice?
Rendell targets budget shortfall
A combination of spending cuts, federal money, funds from gas drilling leases and some reserves will be used to make up revenue losses.
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG — Gov. Ed Rendell plans to offset an estimated $1.6 billion hole in Pennsylvania’s budget this year with spending cuts and money from reserves, gas-drilling leases in state forests and an anticipated federal aid package.
Rendell revealed his plans, and the gaping shortfall projection, Tuesday at a traditional midyear budget briefing for state legislators, who generally reacted positively to what they heard.
The rapidly deteriorating economy has left Pennsylvania and dozens of other states with a shortfall this year, Rendell said. For now, Rendell said his goal is to weather the volatile economy in the next year-and-a-half without a broad-based tax increase or layoffs, or any further budget cuts, until the new fiscal year begins in July.
Cuts announced so far have hit a broad array of programs, from highway and local road improvements to help for the poor, handicapped and neglected. Thousands of nonunion state employees also will go without a costof-living salary increase.
“It’s a good first step, but the numbers are bleak,” said Republican state Rep. Marguerite Quinn of the 143rd District, which includes parts of Central and Upper Bucks. “More cuts need to be made. It’s not an easy position to be in but the job has to be done. We just have to make sure we’re making necessary cuts and live within our means.”
State Rep. Rick Taylor, a Democrat from the 151st District, which includes parts of Horsham and Montgomery Township, said, “The fact that both the governor and the leadership believe we should raise taxes only as a last resort is good news for all of us, especially in this tough economy when people are losing their jobs.”
The Democratic governor pledged to work cooperatively on the plan with lawmakers, whose approval of some aspects of the plan will be necessary, and he appealed for understanding from people and organizations that are hurting from a loss of state money and services.
“We’re going to try to make the cuts we have to make in a way that still preserves our ability to grow and still preserves the services you need,” Rendell said at the briefing at the State Museum auditorium in Harrisburg. “We’re going to do it in a responsible way, because this is a crisis. Hopefully it will be a short-lived crisis.”
State Sen. Rob Wonderling, a Republican whose 24th District includes parts of Upper Bucks and Montgomery County, said, “There are no sacred cows. All facets and assets of government should be subject to scrutiny. But I’d be very careful about cutting help and support for those at the greatest disadvantage who are the most vulnerable.”
In July, Rendell signed a $28.3 billion budget, an increase of about 4 percent over last year’s budget. But through the end of November, state tax collections ran nearly 7 percent behind expectations. If the shortfall continues at that rate, the state will face a nearly $2 billion deficit when the fiscal year ends in June.
Rendell said Tuesday that his administration is projecting a $1.6 billion shortfall, a number that he cautioned could change as the nation’s unpredictable economic future unfolds.
“There’s no surety to that $1.6 billion figure,” Rendell said. “We think $1.6 billion is a conservative estimate. It could be better, and obviously it could be worse, so this will be a work in progress.”
The plan to offset it includes $500 million in cuts that Rendell has already requested from across state government and its independent agencies, including the courts and Legislature.
Rendell wants to take half the state’s budgetary reserve — or $375 million — plus another $101 million sitting idle in various program accounts that was committed in past years but never spent.
He also plans to divert $174 million from leases that allow five exploration companies to drill for natural gas on publicly owned state forest land in northern Pennsylvania. The money was slated for the state’s Oil and Gas Lease Fund, which is reserved for improvements to the state parks and forests.
In addition, Rendell said he is estimating that the federal government will approve an aid package for state governments.
“I fully expect that the commonwealth will receive the federal stimulus funding that President-elect Barack Obama spoke of last week,” Rendell said. “We anticipate receiving $450 million this fiscal year. Those funds will allow us to preserve the remainder of the Rainy Day Fund until 2009-10.”
Asked if that meant the stimulus would not be used to create jobs, Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said, “No, it means we will not have to dip as deeply into the rainy day fund as we might if no help from Washington were forthcoming.”
House Minority Leader Sam Smith of Jefferson County said he generally approved of Rendell’s handling of the deficit, and suggested that House Republicans are willing to contribute some of the estimated $240 million legislative reserve to the deficit plan.
However, Smith warned that the real challenge will be handling the increasing pressure on the state’s finances in the 2009-10 fiscal year. The woeful outlook on tax collections virtually assures that state government will be unable to increase spending, he said.
Why is it sounding like the budget process is now akin to the RMS Titanic and we're all sitting in the 4th class steerage section waiting for the porter to return with some ice?
Rendell targets budget shortfall
A combination of spending cuts, federal money, funds from gas drilling leases and some reserves will be used to make up revenue losses.
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG — Gov. Ed Rendell plans to offset an estimated $1.6 billion hole in Pennsylvania’s budget this year with spending cuts and money from reserves, gas-drilling leases in state forests and an anticipated federal aid package.
Rendell revealed his plans, and the gaping shortfall projection, Tuesday at a traditional midyear budget briefing for state legislators, who generally reacted positively to what they heard.
The rapidly deteriorating economy has left Pennsylvania and dozens of other states with a shortfall this year, Rendell said. For now, Rendell said his goal is to weather the volatile economy in the next year-and-a-half without a broad-based tax increase or layoffs, or any further budget cuts, until the new fiscal year begins in July.
Cuts announced so far have hit a broad array of programs, from highway and local road improvements to help for the poor, handicapped and neglected. Thousands of nonunion state employees also will go without a costof-living salary increase.
“It’s a good first step, but the numbers are bleak,” said Republican state Rep. Marguerite Quinn of the 143rd District, which includes parts of Central and Upper Bucks. “More cuts need to be made. It’s not an easy position to be in but the job has to be done. We just have to make sure we’re making necessary cuts and live within our means.”
State Rep. Rick Taylor, a Democrat from the 151st District, which includes parts of Horsham and Montgomery Township, said, “The fact that both the governor and the leadership believe we should raise taxes only as a last resort is good news for all of us, especially in this tough economy when people are losing their jobs.”
The Democratic governor pledged to work cooperatively on the plan with lawmakers, whose approval of some aspects of the plan will be necessary, and he appealed for understanding from people and organizations that are hurting from a loss of state money and services.
“We’re going to try to make the cuts we have to make in a way that still preserves our ability to grow and still preserves the services you need,” Rendell said at the briefing at the State Museum auditorium in Harrisburg. “We’re going to do it in a responsible way, because this is a crisis. Hopefully it will be a short-lived crisis.”
State Sen. Rob Wonderling, a Republican whose 24th District includes parts of Upper Bucks and Montgomery County, said, “There are no sacred cows. All facets and assets of government should be subject to scrutiny. But I’d be very careful about cutting help and support for those at the greatest disadvantage who are the most vulnerable.”
In July, Rendell signed a $28.3 billion budget, an increase of about 4 percent over last year’s budget. But through the end of November, state tax collections ran nearly 7 percent behind expectations. If the shortfall continues at that rate, the state will face a nearly $2 billion deficit when the fiscal year ends in June.
Rendell said Tuesday that his administration is projecting a $1.6 billion shortfall, a number that he cautioned could change as the nation’s unpredictable economic future unfolds.
“There’s no surety to that $1.6 billion figure,” Rendell said. “We think $1.6 billion is a conservative estimate. It could be better, and obviously it could be worse, so this will be a work in progress.”
The plan to offset it includes $500 million in cuts that Rendell has already requested from across state government and its independent agencies, including the courts and Legislature.
Rendell wants to take half the state’s budgetary reserve — or $375 million — plus another $101 million sitting idle in various program accounts that was committed in past years but never spent.
He also plans to divert $174 million from leases that allow five exploration companies to drill for natural gas on publicly owned state forest land in northern Pennsylvania. The money was slated for the state’s Oil and Gas Lease Fund, which is reserved for improvements to the state parks and forests.
In addition, Rendell said he is estimating that the federal government will approve an aid package for state governments.
“I fully expect that the commonwealth will receive the federal stimulus funding that President-elect Barack Obama spoke of last week,” Rendell said. “We anticipate receiving $450 million this fiscal year. Those funds will allow us to preserve the remainder of the Rainy Day Fund until 2009-10.”
Asked if that meant the stimulus would not be used to create jobs, Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said, “No, it means we will not have to dip as deeply into the rainy day fund as we might if no help from Washington were forthcoming.”
House Minority Leader Sam Smith of Jefferson County said he generally approved of Rendell’s handling of the deficit, and suggested that House Republicans are willing to contribute some of the estimated $240 million legislative reserve to the deficit plan.
However, Smith warned that the real challenge will be handling the increasing pressure on the state’s finances in the 2009-10 fiscal year. The woeful outlook on tax collections virtually assures that state government will be unable to increase spending, he said.
Monday, December 1, 2008
It's Raining
From the Inquirer. The state's rainy day fund appears poised to be tapped again.
Was there ever any word on the pay increase for our state legislators?
Pa. lawmakers consider tapping surplus funds
By Paul Nussbaum Posted on Mon, Dec. 1, 2008
Facing a growing budget deficit, Pennsylvania lawmakers must consider tapping the state's $750 million "rainy day fund," State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said yesterday.
"This is more than a rainy day; it's a hurricane," Evans said.
The legislature also should consider using its own $240 million surplus fund and the approximately $700 million in legislatively controlled grant money, familiarly known as "walking around money," he said.
Pennsylvania's budget shortfall may be about $2 billion by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, as tax revenues are lagging about 7 percent below projections so far. The state budget is $28.3 billion.
The financial woes of Pennsylvania and other states will take center stage in Philadelphia tomorrow, when President-elect Barack Obama and the nation's governors gather to discuss increased federal aid for states.
Last Monday, Obama asked Congress to ready a stimulus program for him to sign as soon as possible after he takes office Jan. 20. Estimates of the spending range from $500 billion to $700 billion over two years, and Democratic congressional leaders have said some of it could help cash-strapped states provide health care to the poor and pay for road and bridge projects.
Pennsylvania would like to get a commitment of $750 million to $1 billion from Washington, Evans said.
Gov. Rendell is to brief legislative leaders Dec. 9 on the grim state of Pennsylvania's finances.
Rendell already has ordered two spending reductions at state agencies, issued a hiring freeze, and banned state-employee travel and the purchase of new government vehicles.
As the leader of state House budget efforts, Evans said the state should borrow money to spend on road, bridge, and mass-transit projects. That would create needed jobs and shore up the state's crumbling infrastructure, he said.
He said he would reintroduce a bill to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private operator. A proposal to lease the turnpike to an American-Spanish consortium for $12 billion died in the legislature this year.
Targeted tax increases, but not a general tax increase, also may be considered, Evans said.
"Everything is going to be on the table," Evans said. "We're not going to try to protect anything. . . . I'm not going to say no to anything."
At the same time, the state needs to spend on such things as education and transportation as "investments for the future," Evans said. He said cutbacks for hospitals, nursing homes and the poor should be "the very, very last places we go." He said cuts there would simply transfer the burden to local governments and to overstretched private charities.
"At some point, this will pass, and we will be looking at the future. We need to make Pennsylvania a competitive place to live and work," Evans said.
The state's "rainy day fund" has been tapped before. In 2002, the legislature approved a $750 million withdrawal from the fund, and in 2003, it approved draining the remaining $250 million from the fund.
Contributions over the last five years have brought the fund balance back up to $750 million. A two-thirds majority of each legislative house is required to approve any withdrawal.
Was there ever any word on the pay increase for our state legislators?
Pa. lawmakers consider tapping surplus funds
By Paul Nussbaum Posted on Mon, Dec. 1, 2008
Facing a growing budget deficit, Pennsylvania lawmakers must consider tapping the state's $750 million "rainy day fund," State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said yesterday.
"This is more than a rainy day; it's a hurricane," Evans said.
The legislature also should consider using its own $240 million surplus fund and the approximately $700 million in legislatively controlled grant money, familiarly known as "walking around money," he said.
Pennsylvania's budget shortfall may be about $2 billion by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, as tax revenues are lagging about 7 percent below projections so far. The state budget is $28.3 billion.
The financial woes of Pennsylvania and other states will take center stage in Philadelphia tomorrow, when President-elect Barack Obama and the nation's governors gather to discuss increased federal aid for states.
Last Monday, Obama asked Congress to ready a stimulus program for him to sign as soon as possible after he takes office Jan. 20. Estimates of the spending range from $500 billion to $700 billion over two years, and Democratic congressional leaders have said some of it could help cash-strapped states provide health care to the poor and pay for road and bridge projects.
Pennsylvania would like to get a commitment of $750 million to $1 billion from Washington, Evans said.
Gov. Rendell is to brief legislative leaders Dec. 9 on the grim state of Pennsylvania's finances.
Rendell already has ordered two spending reductions at state agencies, issued a hiring freeze, and banned state-employee travel and the purchase of new government vehicles.
As the leader of state House budget efforts, Evans said the state should borrow money to spend on road, bridge, and mass-transit projects. That would create needed jobs and shore up the state's crumbling infrastructure, he said.
He said he would reintroduce a bill to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private operator. A proposal to lease the turnpike to an American-Spanish consortium for $12 billion died in the legislature this year.
Targeted tax increases, but not a general tax increase, also may be considered, Evans said.
"Everything is going to be on the table," Evans said. "We're not going to try to protect anything. . . . I'm not going to say no to anything."
At the same time, the state needs to spend on such things as education and transportation as "investments for the future," Evans said. He said cutbacks for hospitals, nursing homes and the poor should be "the very, very last places we go." He said cuts there would simply transfer the burden to local governments and to overstretched private charities.
"At some point, this will pass, and we will be looking at the future. We need to make Pennsylvania a competitive place to live and work," Evans said.
The state's "rainy day fund" has been tapped before. In 2002, the legislature approved a $750 million withdrawal from the fund, and in 2003, it approved draining the remaining $250 million from the fund.
Contributions over the last five years have brought the fund balance back up to $750 million. A two-thirds majority of each legislative house is required to approve any withdrawal.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Rendell Identifies $350M in Budget Cuts
PA state budget cuts identified.
Governor Rendell Says $350 Million in Cuts Will Help Keep Budget Balanced
Last update: 3:54 p.m. EDT Oct. 30, 2008
HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct 30, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Vows Continued Vigilance; Budget Reductions are on Top of $1.5 Billion in Annual Savings From More Efficient Government
With the national economic crisis continuing to affect state revenue collections, Gov. Edward G. Rendell said today that his administration has identified $350 million in cuts to help keep the 2008-09 budget balanced while preserving crucial services.
"I asked my cabinet secretaries last month to find ways to save $200 million this fiscal year," the Governor said. "They have responded by identifying $289 million in savings in their agencies. They have also followed my directive to preserve critical spending, including funding for state police protection and much-needed health, education and safety net programs for our most vulnerable citizens.
"The revenue situation may get worse before it gets better. We will continue to monitor these volatile economic conditions in order to maintain the commonwealth's balanced budget." Governor Rendell said. "Any dire predictions about next year's potential budget shortfall are premature and counterproductive. We need to focus on the spending reductions announced today and use the expertise we developed in the past six years to continue improving government efficiency to save taxpayer money."
The $289 million in cuts to agencies under the Governor's jurisdiction announced today is in addition to the 1.3 percent budget reduction that Governor Rendell agreed to in budget negotiations because of economic conditions. The enacted budget is $72.4 million less than the budget he proposed in February.
With revenues for the current fiscal year coming in below expectations, last month the Governor directed his cabinet secretaries to cut 4.25 percent of their enacted budgets. Agencies that provide public safety, health and education services were given smaller percentage targets to meet. As part of his call for fiscal restraint, the Governor also announced a general hiring freeze and bans on out-of-state travel and on the purchase of new vehicles for the state fleet. The funds from all cost-saving measures will be put into budgetary reserve.
Governor Rendell also requested that independent entities, including the legislature, the judiciary, the treasurer, the attorney general, the auditor general, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (not including direct grants to students) reduce their budgets by the same 4.25 percent that was expected of agencies under his jurisdiction.
The $289 million in cuts identified by agencies under the Governor's jurisdiction, combined with a $22 million cut the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and a $457,000 cut from Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, comes to $311 million. The SSHE and Thaddeus Stevens cuts represent the 4.25 percent savings the Governor requested.
An additional $39 million in savings would be realized if the General Assembly and other independent state entities agree to make 4.25 percent cuts in their budgets. The General Assembly and the other independent entities have not yet revealed whether they will do so.
"It is my hope and expectation that every branch of government will do their part. I
look forward to their cooperation and prompt response," Governor Rendell said.
"Pennsylvania's revenue shortfall is of no single branch's making, and it will take the work of all branches of government to respond to this challenge."
The administration will continue monitoring revenue collections closely in the coming months, the Governor said, and will work to keep the budget balanced.
Unlike many other large industrial and competitor states, the commonwealth continues to have historically high numbers of Pennsylvanians working. The state has 163,700 more jobs today than it did in January 2003, and Pennsylvania's unemployment rate was 7 percent better than the nation in September and has been at or below the national average for 67 of the past 69 months.
This high level of employment bodes well for projected personal income tax collections next April. In addition, Pennsylvania is continuing to see private business investment grow the economy - such as the recent groundbreaking of the $1.2 billion U.S. Steel project in southwestern Pennsylvania.
"The national economy is extremely volatile and, despite the solid footing of Pennsylvania's economy, we recognize that there will be additional challenges throughout the year," he said. "The wisest course of action is to reduce spending now while being prepared to take additional steps as needed as we gain more information until the crisis subsides."
Earlier this week, in his role as chairman of the National Governors Association, Governor Rendell sent a letter on behalf of the nation's Governors asking Congress to pass an economic recovery package that helps states and spurs economic growth by temporarily increasing the federal matching rate for Medicaid and providing additional funds for infrastructure investment.
Pennsylvania's economy remains on a firmer footing than the economies of other states, according to a report released in mid-October by the national Center on Budget & Policy Priorities.
Other signs also point to the commonwealth's overall fiscal soundness. Pennsylvania's credit rating remains double-A, which is the second-highest level possible, and the state has a Rainy Day Fund balance of nearly $750 million.
Governor Rendell said Pennsylvania is now saving $1.5 billion a year as a result of his efforts to enhance government services while improving efficiency and cutting waste, including:
-- There are nearly 3,000 fewer commonwealth employees than in January
2003, which saved the commonwealth approximately $240 million last year;
-- The commonwealth has saved $272 million by developing smarter purchasing
policies;
-- The commonwealth has reduced the size of the state's automobile
fleet and is keeping vehicles longer, saving approximately $33 million;
-- The Governor's recent directive to halt the purchase of new
commonwealth vehicles will save an estimated $40 million this year
alone;
-- The commonwealth has kept average annual employee health care cost
increases to less than 3 percent over the past five years - far below
the growth in private health care costs; and
-- Adjustments announced last year to the Retired Employees Health Program
will save $94 million a year.
"Commonwealth employees have more than five years of experience in finding new and cost-effective ways to operate," the Governor said. "I know they will accept this challenge to develop innovative ways to do even more with less."
As he reviewed the current state of the commonwealth and national economies, the Governor emphasized: "This is a work in progress. We will continue to take the steps necessary to ensure that our budget stays in balance."
The Rendell administration is committed to creating a first-rate public education system, protecting our most vulnerable citizens and continuing economic investment to support our communities and businesses. To find out more about Governor Rendell's initiatives and to sign up for his weekly newsletter, visit www.governor.state.pa.us.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For a list of appropriations affected by the budgetary reserve initiative, go to www.budget.state.pa.us and click on the Budget & Financial Reports link.
Governor Rendell Says $350 Million in Cuts Will Help Keep Budget Balanced
Last update: 3:54 p.m. EDT Oct. 30, 2008
HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct 30, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Vows Continued Vigilance; Budget Reductions are on Top of $1.5 Billion in Annual Savings From More Efficient Government
With the national economic crisis continuing to affect state revenue collections, Gov. Edward G. Rendell said today that his administration has identified $350 million in cuts to help keep the 2008-09 budget balanced while preserving crucial services.
"I asked my cabinet secretaries last month to find ways to save $200 million this fiscal year," the Governor said. "They have responded by identifying $289 million in savings in their agencies. They have also followed my directive to preserve critical spending, including funding for state police protection and much-needed health, education and safety net programs for our most vulnerable citizens.
"The revenue situation may get worse before it gets better. We will continue to monitor these volatile economic conditions in order to maintain the commonwealth's balanced budget." Governor Rendell said. "Any dire predictions about next year's potential budget shortfall are premature and counterproductive. We need to focus on the spending reductions announced today and use the expertise we developed in the past six years to continue improving government efficiency to save taxpayer money."
The $289 million in cuts to agencies under the Governor's jurisdiction announced today is in addition to the 1.3 percent budget reduction that Governor Rendell agreed to in budget negotiations because of economic conditions. The enacted budget is $72.4 million less than the budget he proposed in February.
With revenues for the current fiscal year coming in below expectations, last month the Governor directed his cabinet secretaries to cut 4.25 percent of their enacted budgets. Agencies that provide public safety, health and education services were given smaller percentage targets to meet. As part of his call for fiscal restraint, the Governor also announced a general hiring freeze and bans on out-of-state travel and on the purchase of new vehicles for the state fleet. The funds from all cost-saving measures will be put into budgetary reserve.
Governor Rendell also requested that independent entities, including the legislature, the judiciary, the treasurer, the attorney general, the auditor general, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (not including direct grants to students) reduce their budgets by the same 4.25 percent that was expected of agencies under his jurisdiction.
The $289 million in cuts identified by agencies under the Governor's jurisdiction, combined with a $22 million cut the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and a $457,000 cut from Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, comes to $311 million. The SSHE and Thaddeus Stevens cuts represent the 4.25 percent savings the Governor requested.
An additional $39 million in savings would be realized if the General Assembly and other independent state entities agree to make 4.25 percent cuts in their budgets. The General Assembly and the other independent entities have not yet revealed whether they will do so.
"It is my hope and expectation that every branch of government will do their part. I
look forward to their cooperation and prompt response," Governor Rendell said.
"Pennsylvania's revenue shortfall is of no single branch's making, and it will take the work of all branches of government to respond to this challenge."
The administration will continue monitoring revenue collections closely in the coming months, the Governor said, and will work to keep the budget balanced.
Unlike many other large industrial and competitor states, the commonwealth continues to have historically high numbers of Pennsylvanians working. The state has 163,700 more jobs today than it did in January 2003, and Pennsylvania's unemployment rate was 7 percent better than the nation in September and has been at or below the national average for 67 of the past 69 months.
This high level of employment bodes well for projected personal income tax collections next April. In addition, Pennsylvania is continuing to see private business investment grow the economy - such as the recent groundbreaking of the $1.2 billion U.S. Steel project in southwestern Pennsylvania.
"The national economy is extremely volatile and, despite the solid footing of Pennsylvania's economy, we recognize that there will be additional challenges throughout the year," he said. "The wisest course of action is to reduce spending now while being prepared to take additional steps as needed as we gain more information until the crisis subsides."
Earlier this week, in his role as chairman of the National Governors Association, Governor Rendell sent a letter on behalf of the nation's Governors asking Congress to pass an economic recovery package that helps states and spurs economic growth by temporarily increasing the federal matching rate for Medicaid and providing additional funds for infrastructure investment.
Pennsylvania's economy remains on a firmer footing than the economies of other states, according to a report released in mid-October by the national Center on Budget & Policy Priorities.
Other signs also point to the commonwealth's overall fiscal soundness. Pennsylvania's credit rating remains double-A, which is the second-highest level possible, and the state has a Rainy Day Fund balance of nearly $750 million.
Governor Rendell said Pennsylvania is now saving $1.5 billion a year as a result of his efforts to enhance government services while improving efficiency and cutting waste, including:
-- There are nearly 3,000 fewer commonwealth employees than in January
2003, which saved the commonwealth approximately $240 million last year;
-- The commonwealth has saved $272 million by developing smarter purchasing
policies;
-- The commonwealth has reduced the size of the state's automobile
fleet and is keeping vehicles longer, saving approximately $33 million;
-- The Governor's recent directive to halt the purchase of new
commonwealth vehicles will save an estimated $40 million this year
alone;
-- The commonwealth has kept average annual employee health care cost
increases to less than 3 percent over the past five years - far below
the growth in private health care costs; and
-- Adjustments announced last year to the Retired Employees Health Program
will save $94 million a year.
"Commonwealth employees have more than five years of experience in finding new and cost-effective ways to operate," the Governor said. "I know they will accept this challenge to develop innovative ways to do even more with less."
As he reviewed the current state of the commonwealth and national economies, the Governor emphasized: "This is a work in progress. We will continue to take the steps necessary to ensure that our budget stays in balance."
The Rendell administration is committed to creating a first-rate public education system, protecting our most vulnerable citizens and continuing economic investment to support our communities and businesses. To find out more about Governor Rendell's initiatives and to sign up for his weekly newsletter, visit www.governor.state.pa.us.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For a list of appropriations affected by the budgetary reserve initiative, go to www.budget.state.pa.us and click on the Budget & Financial Reports link.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
State Budget Cutting
From the Inquirer. Can cuts in K-12 funding be far behind?
Pa. universities facing budget cuts
By Susan Snyder Inquirer Staff Writer Posted on Thu, Oct. 23, 2008
The 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, including West Chester and Cheyney, will be faced with some unexpected budget slashing in the coming months, courtesy of the cash-strapped state.
The state system's board today is expected to approve a request from Gov. Rendell to give back 4.25 percent, or about $22 million, of its state appropriation for 2008-09, which was $498.5 million.
Looking to next year, the board is also expected to put the state on notice that it will need a 5.7 percent hike in funding over the current year. The funding request is part of a proposed 2009-10 budget that the state system is required to submit to the state by Oct. 31. Under that proposed budget, the state system would increase tuition by 4 percent.
State system spokesman Kenn Marshall said the numbers were preliminary, and the state board won't vote on a tuition hike until July, after the state budget is approved.
The state system's committee approved the numbers even though economic troubles are looming.
"The feeling of the board is we needed to ask for what we needed. It's important that the legislature and governor's office knows this is what we really need to operate," Marshall said.
Earlier this month Rendell ordered a number of austerity measures to keep Pennsylvania's budget balanced, including directing cabinet secretaries to trim their spending by 4.25 percent.
State-related institutions, including Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Lincoln University and Temple University, were also asked to plan for 4.25 percent cuts in their state funding this year.
Temple announced it would institute a hiring freeze and restrict travel in response. Penn State will not fill positions, will hold off on equipment purchases, and will ask all departments to look for other efficiencies.
The state system universities will need to forego hires, defer maintenance, or make other cuts, Marshall said.
"It will be up to each university to decide how they do it," he said.
West Chester, one of the largest universities in the system, will lose about $2.4 million, and Cheyney, already struggling financially, will see a drop of $680,000. Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the largest in the state system, will see the biggest fall - $2.7 million.
While Rendell asked the schools only to plan for a possible cut at this point, officials expect it will occur "unless things really turn around very quickly," Marshall said.
Pa. universities facing budget cuts
By Susan Snyder Inquirer Staff Writer Posted on Thu, Oct. 23, 2008
The 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, including West Chester and Cheyney, will be faced with some unexpected budget slashing in the coming months, courtesy of the cash-strapped state.
The state system's board today is expected to approve a request from Gov. Rendell to give back 4.25 percent, or about $22 million, of its state appropriation for 2008-09, which was $498.5 million.
Looking to next year, the board is also expected to put the state on notice that it will need a 5.7 percent hike in funding over the current year. The funding request is part of a proposed 2009-10 budget that the state system is required to submit to the state by Oct. 31. Under that proposed budget, the state system would increase tuition by 4 percent.
State system spokesman Kenn Marshall said the numbers were preliminary, and the state board won't vote on a tuition hike until July, after the state budget is approved.
The state system's committee approved the numbers even though economic troubles are looming.
"The feeling of the board is we needed to ask for what we needed. It's important that the legislature and governor's office knows this is what we really need to operate," Marshall said.
Earlier this month Rendell ordered a number of austerity measures to keep Pennsylvania's budget balanced, including directing cabinet secretaries to trim their spending by 4.25 percent.
State-related institutions, including Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Lincoln University and Temple University, were also asked to plan for 4.25 percent cuts in their state funding this year.
Temple announced it would institute a hiring freeze and restrict travel in response. Penn State will not fill positions, will hold off on equipment purchases, and will ask all departments to look for other efficiencies.
The state system universities will need to forego hires, defer maintenance, or make other cuts, Marshall said.
"It will be up to each university to decide how they do it," he said.
West Chester, one of the largest universities in the system, will lose about $2.4 million, and Cheyney, already struggling financially, will see a drop of $680,000. Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the largest in the state system, will see the biggest fall - $2.7 million.
While Rendell asked the schools only to plan for a possible cut at this point, officials expect it will occur "unless things really turn around very quickly," Marshall said.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Pennsylvania Budget Deal
From the Inquirer
Rendell gets education increase in budget
By Dan Hardy, Inquirer Staff Writer
Governor Rendell's proposed 2008-09 education budget sought to create a predictable and long-term education funding system for Pennsylvania that would take the first step toward increasing state funding for school districts by $2.6 billion over the next six years.
He appears to have gotten much of what he wanted.
For starters, there's a historic increase in education funding by $274 million, close to the $291 million Rendell originally asked for.
The basic education funding will be allocated based on figures from a recent "costing out" study that determined how much money the neediest districts should get.
No district will get less than a 3 percent hike; that's double the 1.5 percent minimum increase that Rendell had asked for, according to a legislative official privy to the negotiations under way to finalize the overall budget agreement reached early yesterday morning.
The legislature did not commit to using the same formula to increase state funding over the next six years, the official said. But the legislation will refer to targets based on this year's allocations that the legislature hopes to meet in the future, he said.
"This is an immense victory for children and schools in Pennsylvania," said Baruch Kintisch, a spokesman for the Education Law Center, an advocacy group that has pushed for increased state funding and a predictable funding system. "This is a historic gain - we now have a real [basic education] formula that will be the baseline for the future."
Philadelphia will get $34 million less in basic education money than the $85 million increase Rendell had requested. But, that money will be made up through increases in other funding for the district, which will receive $1.3 billion in state aid next year.
Helen Gym, a Philadelphia parent and education activist, was more cautious. "We don't want the legislature to think this is a one-time commitment and we're done," she said. "It is a significant boost but only when they actually make a commitment to keep increasing the funding over the long run will we see real change."
Basic education funding made up the largest portion of Rendell's proposed $9.38 billion education budget proposal.
The budget legislation will also bar the development of statewide graduation tests. The State Board of Education, with strong Rendell administration backing, had proposed that the state institute a series of subject tests that students could take to show that they knew the material.
The idea triggered widespread opposition among school district officials and state lawmakers.
The budget will have less special-education funding than the governor had asked for. Rendell had requested $1.04 billion, a 3 percent increase; the final figure will be about $1.03 billion, a 1.7 percent increase, said Timothy Allwein, the legislative liaison for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
Funding for the governor's Classrooms for the Future program, to put laptops in every high school core-subject classroom, was cut from the proposed $90 million to $45 million, the legislative official said.
Education department officials said details of the agreement were not final and they could not comment.
Allwein, of the school boards association, said that "I think education made out as well as can be expected, given the fiscal realities of this year and the concerns for what the future was going to bring."
The smaller special-education increase, he said, "is a huge blow - districts will have to shift funds to make up for this loss."
------------------------------------------------
Details of Pa. budget deal
The Associated Press
Details of the budget deal struck early Monday between Gov. Ed Rendell and state legislative leaders:
BUDGET
$28.2 billion for fiscal year 2008-09 beginning Tuesday
3.8 percent increase over past year's spending
Does not require any broad-based tax or fee increases
Uses about $550 million in one-time funds to fill hole in revenues
Does not dip into state's budget reserve to support spending
Agreement before fiscal year's end averts threatened furloughs of 25,000 state workers
BORROWING
$800 million from slot-machine gambling revenues for dams and water and sewer facilities
$500 million from electric utility gross receipts tax revenue for alternative energy projects
$800 million from general tax revenues for civic redevelopment projects
$350 million from motorist fees and taxes to fix about 400 of the state's most dangerous bridges
ADDITIONAL LEGISLATION
Requirement that alternative fuels be added to each gallon of diesel or gas as in-state production rises.
Source: Gov. Ed Rendell, Senate Republicans.
Rendell gets education increase in budget
By Dan Hardy, Inquirer Staff Writer
Governor Rendell's proposed 2008-09 education budget sought to create a predictable and long-term education funding system for Pennsylvania that would take the first step toward increasing state funding for school districts by $2.6 billion over the next six years.
He appears to have gotten much of what he wanted.
For starters, there's a historic increase in education funding by $274 million, close to the $291 million Rendell originally asked for.
The basic education funding will be allocated based on figures from a recent "costing out" study that determined how much money the neediest districts should get.
No district will get less than a 3 percent hike; that's double the 1.5 percent minimum increase that Rendell had asked for, according to a legislative official privy to the negotiations under way to finalize the overall budget agreement reached early yesterday morning.
The legislature did not commit to using the same formula to increase state funding over the next six years, the official said. But the legislation will refer to targets based on this year's allocations that the legislature hopes to meet in the future, he said.
"This is an immense victory for children and schools in Pennsylvania," said Baruch Kintisch, a spokesman for the Education Law Center, an advocacy group that has pushed for increased state funding and a predictable funding system. "This is a historic gain - we now have a real [basic education] formula that will be the baseline for the future."
Philadelphia will get $34 million less in basic education money than the $85 million increase Rendell had requested. But, that money will be made up through increases in other funding for the district, which will receive $1.3 billion in state aid next year.
Helen Gym, a Philadelphia parent and education activist, was more cautious. "We don't want the legislature to think this is a one-time commitment and we're done," she said. "It is a significant boost but only when they actually make a commitment to keep increasing the funding over the long run will we see real change."
Basic education funding made up the largest portion of Rendell's proposed $9.38 billion education budget proposal.
The budget legislation will also bar the development of statewide graduation tests. The State Board of Education, with strong Rendell administration backing, had proposed that the state institute a series of subject tests that students could take to show that they knew the material.
The idea triggered widespread opposition among school district officials and state lawmakers.
The budget will have less special-education funding than the governor had asked for. Rendell had requested $1.04 billion, a 3 percent increase; the final figure will be about $1.03 billion, a 1.7 percent increase, said Timothy Allwein, the legislative liaison for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
Funding for the governor's Classrooms for the Future program, to put laptops in every high school core-subject classroom, was cut from the proposed $90 million to $45 million, the legislative official said.
Education department officials said details of the agreement were not final and they could not comment.
Allwein, of the school boards association, said that "I think education made out as well as can be expected, given the fiscal realities of this year and the concerns for what the future was going to bring."
The smaller special-education increase, he said, "is a huge blow - districts will have to shift funds to make up for this loss."
------------------------------------------------
Details of Pa. budget deal
The Associated Press
Details of the budget deal struck early Monday between Gov. Ed Rendell and state legislative leaders:
BUDGET
$28.2 billion for fiscal year 2008-09 beginning Tuesday
3.8 percent increase over past year's spending
Does not require any broad-based tax or fee increases
Uses about $550 million in one-time funds to fill hole in revenues
Does not dip into state's budget reserve to support spending
Agreement before fiscal year's end averts threatened furloughs of 25,000 state workers
BORROWING
$800 million from slot-machine gambling revenues for dams and water and sewer facilities
$500 million from electric utility gross receipts tax revenue for alternative energy projects
$800 million from general tax revenues for civic redevelopment projects
$350 million from motorist fees and taxes to fix about 400 of the state's most dangerous bridges
ADDITIONAL LEGISLATION
Requirement that alternative fuels be added to each gallon of diesel or gas as in-state production rises.
Source: Gov. Ed Rendell, Senate Republicans.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Pennsylvania Taxation and Assessment Update
The Inquirer had part one of this series last week and it was mentioned in this post. Part 2 today looks at the city of Philadelphia.
Real-Estate Roulette
Philadelphia’s ‘unbelievable’ assessments confound property owners with wildly inequitable taxes.
By Anthony R. Wood and Dylan Purcell
Inquirer Staff Writers
Of the 400,000 homeowners in Philadelphia, only 3 percent receive property-tax bills based on the true value of their real estate.
For the remaining 387,000, the amounts they are charged are wrong, and often wildly so - derived from assessments that, on average, are 39 percent off the mark, according to an analysis by The Inquirer.
The appraisals border on the randomness of Ping-Pong balls popped from a lottery machine, with winners and losers. [More at philly.com website]
Real-Estate Roulette
Philadelphia’s ‘unbelievable’ assessments confound property owners with wildly inequitable taxes.
By Anthony R. Wood and Dylan Purcell
Inquirer Staff Writers
Of the 400,000 homeowners in Philadelphia, only 3 percent receive property-tax bills based on the true value of their real estate.
For the remaining 387,000, the amounts they are charged are wrong, and often wildly so - derived from assessments that, on average, are 39 percent off the mark, according to an analysis by The Inquirer.
The appraisals border on the randomness of Ping-Pong balls popped from a lottery machine, with winners and losers. [More at philly.com website]
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
GOP seeks to cut school funding
From the Inquirer this morning.
Our PA state legislators: Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
GOP seeks to cut school funding
A Senate Republican bill would cut $400 million from Gov. Rendell’s budget.
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG — Public school funding is emerging as a friction point as state budget negotiators work to find common ground on an approximately $28 billion budget in the last two weeks of the fiscal year.
A Senate Republican budget bill that is primed for floor debate today would slash the $28.3 billion spending plan proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell by about $400 million. Of that, about $120 million would get cut from Rendell’s suggested basic education subsidy — state money that pays for instruction and operations in public schools.
Rendell called the proposed cut “hugely bad policy.”
“I asked around this morning, but the last time ... the basic education subsidy suggested by the governor was cut by the Legislature, no one could remember,” Rendell told reporters Tuesday.
The bill emerged from the GOP-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday on a party-line vote. A Senate Republican spokesman, Erik Arneson, characterized the bill as a step in the process of ongoing budget negotiations.
The sides have clashed over how much the state should increase spending. Rendell has advocated a 4.2 percent increase that includes $291 million more for basic education, a boost of 6 percent.
The Senate GOP bill puts forward a 2.8 percent overall spending increase. It would increase basic education spending by about $170 million, or 3.5 percent.
In the past, lawmakers have been averse to cutting a governor’s proposed education budget because school districts immediately plug their expected share of the money into their budgets. Should the Legislature trim down the governor’s proposed amount, lawmakers could face blame for local property tax increases that might result.
Rendell said he would he would rather use some of the state’s approximately $750 million budget reserve to fill in any cuts to his school funding proposal.
Arneson, however, said Senate Republicans, who control the chamber, would not discuss using the budget reserve until Rendell releases a fresh revenue projection for the 2008-09 fiscal year.
Without that projection, legislative negotiators do not know how much the state can spend. Rendell said his budget office is still watching the state’s daily revenue collections before it settles on a figure.
The 2008-09 fiscal year begins July 1. Rendell, who met legislative leaders in closed-door budget talks Tuesday, described the negotiations as making slow progress on various fronts.
Our PA state legislators: Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
GOP seeks to cut school funding
A Senate Republican bill would cut $400 million from Gov. Rendell’s budget.
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG — Public school funding is emerging as a friction point as state budget negotiators work to find common ground on an approximately $28 billion budget in the last two weeks of the fiscal year.
A Senate Republican budget bill that is primed for floor debate today would slash the $28.3 billion spending plan proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell by about $400 million. Of that, about $120 million would get cut from Rendell’s suggested basic education subsidy — state money that pays for instruction and operations in public schools.
Rendell called the proposed cut “hugely bad policy.”
“I asked around this morning, but the last time ... the basic education subsidy suggested by the governor was cut by the Legislature, no one could remember,” Rendell told reporters Tuesday.
The bill emerged from the GOP-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday on a party-line vote. A Senate Republican spokesman, Erik Arneson, characterized the bill as a step in the process of ongoing budget negotiations.
The sides have clashed over how much the state should increase spending. Rendell has advocated a 4.2 percent increase that includes $291 million more for basic education, a boost of 6 percent.
The Senate GOP bill puts forward a 2.8 percent overall spending increase. It would increase basic education spending by about $170 million, or 3.5 percent.
In the past, lawmakers have been averse to cutting a governor’s proposed education budget because school districts immediately plug their expected share of the money into their budgets. Should the Legislature trim down the governor’s proposed amount, lawmakers could face blame for local property tax increases that might result.
Rendell said he would he would rather use some of the state’s approximately $750 million budget reserve to fill in any cuts to his school funding proposal.
Arneson, however, said Senate Republicans, who control the chamber, would not discuss using the budget reserve until Rendell releases a fresh revenue projection for the 2008-09 fiscal year.
Without that projection, legislative negotiators do not know how much the state can spend. Rendell said his budget office is still watching the state’s daily revenue collections before it settles on a figure.
The 2008-09 fiscal year begins July 1. Rendell, who met legislative leaders in closed-door budget talks Tuesday, described the negotiations as making slow progress on various fronts.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
CALL YOUR PA STATE REPS-SCHOOL FUNDING CUTS
This email was forwarded to me. Please read and respond.
Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
CALL TO ACTION!
Your Help Needed Immediately!
More Info
Budget, Mandate Waiver, Tax Collection Issues
June 17, 2008
Call Your Senator Today
Late Monday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 16-10 to report Senate Bill 1389, an alternative to Gov. Rendell's proposed budget. SB 1389 proposes to cut education funding by $118 million or 41% -less than 2 weeks before school districts have to approve their own budgets for 2008-09. As reported last week, it was becoming apparent that some type of re-distribution of funds was imminent; however massive cuts of this nature are a different story and would cause chaos in the budgeting process for scores of school districts.
The message to your Senator is to vote against SB 1389 when it comes to the floor and to restore education funding to the $291 million level that has been proposed by the governor. A vote on this bill could come this afternoon, so your calls are needed today.
Efforts to weaken the mandate waiver program underway in Senate
Efforts to water down the current mandate waiver provisions of the School Code are indeed underway. In an effort to move SB 1412, a bill amending the Keystone Opportunity Zone Act to allow municipalities and school districts to extend the tax abatement benefits to those who develop unoccupied or blighted parcels of land, the Senate is considering an amendment that would remove the most important mandate waiver available to school districts.
Specifically, in a "deal" to keep them from offering an amendment to the bill to require prevailing wage provisions to cover projects that take place inside a KOZ, some trade unions have sought to have Section 751, the section of the School Code dealing with the separate prime contract requirement, added to the list of mandates that cannot be waived. The vote is said to be very close at this point and it appears that the deal may be approved.
School board members, particularly those who have applied for and received waivers from the separate prime contract mandate under the mandate waiver program, need to call their Senators immediately and ask them not to vote for any amendment to the bill that would make add this mandate to the list of items that cannot be waived.
Since the mandate waiver program began under Act 16 of 2000, school districts that have received a waiver from the separate prime contract mandate have realized savings of over $80 million. If this waiver were to be taken away, the entire mandate waiver program would be rendered meaningless since the only things left to waive are those things that could only result in marginal savings to school districts.
For years, PSBA has asked the state Legislature to help school districts reduce costs by lowering the cost of state mandates. The mandate waiver was a major accomplishment and a major step towards this goal. Ask your Senator to reject this "trade-off" because it will only harm school districts, particularly growing districts, and taxpayers.
House to vote on SB 1063 - Earned Income Tax collection
The House is set to call up Senate Bill 1063, the consolidated earned income tax sometime within the next few session days. This bill requires that local governments and school districts to form countywide tax collection committees for the collection of earned income taxes. Each municipality and school district will have representation on the tax collection committee. While the House Finance Committee approved several of the changes PSBA sought, the costs of the tax collection committee continue to be based on revenues collected, meaning that school districts will likely absorb most of those costs.
Members are asked to call their state Representatives and ask them to support an amendment that would more fairly allocate the costs of the tax collection committee amount all its members.
Contact Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th) and Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
CALL TO ACTION!
Your Help Needed Immediately!
More Info
Budget, Mandate Waiver, Tax Collection Issues
June 17, 2008
Call Your Senator Today
Late Monday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 16-10 to report Senate Bill 1389, an alternative to Gov. Rendell's proposed budget. SB 1389 proposes to cut education funding by $118 million or 41% -less than 2 weeks before school districts have to approve their own budgets for 2008-09. As reported last week, it was becoming apparent that some type of re-distribution of funds was imminent; however massive cuts of this nature are a different story and would cause chaos in the budgeting process for scores of school districts.
The message to your Senator is to vote against SB 1389 when it comes to the floor and to restore education funding to the $291 million level that has been proposed by the governor. A vote on this bill could come this afternoon, so your calls are needed today.
Efforts to weaken the mandate waiver program underway in Senate
Efforts to water down the current mandate waiver provisions of the School Code are indeed underway. In an effort to move SB 1412, a bill amending the Keystone Opportunity Zone Act to allow municipalities and school districts to extend the tax abatement benefits to those who develop unoccupied or blighted parcels of land, the Senate is considering an amendment that would remove the most important mandate waiver available to school districts.
Specifically, in a "deal" to keep them from offering an amendment to the bill to require prevailing wage provisions to cover projects that take place inside a KOZ, some trade unions have sought to have Section 751, the section of the School Code dealing with the separate prime contract requirement, added to the list of mandates that cannot be waived. The vote is said to be very close at this point and it appears that the deal may be approved.
School board members, particularly those who have applied for and received waivers from the separate prime contract mandate under the mandate waiver program, need to call their Senators immediately and ask them not to vote for any amendment to the bill that would make add this mandate to the list of items that cannot be waived.
Since the mandate waiver program began under Act 16 of 2000, school districts that have received a waiver from the separate prime contract mandate have realized savings of over $80 million. If this waiver were to be taken away, the entire mandate waiver program would be rendered meaningless since the only things left to waive are those things that could only result in marginal savings to school districts.
For years, PSBA has asked the state Legislature to help school districts reduce costs by lowering the cost of state mandates. The mandate waiver was a major accomplishment and a major step towards this goal. Ask your Senator to reject this "trade-off" because it will only harm school districts, particularly growing districts, and taxpayers.
House to vote on SB 1063 - Earned Income Tax collection
The House is set to call up Senate Bill 1063, the consolidated earned income tax sometime within the next few session days. This bill requires that local governments and school districts to form countywide tax collection committees for the collection of earned income taxes. Each municipality and school district will have representation on the tax collection committee. While the House Finance Committee approved several of the changes PSBA sought, the costs of the tax collection committee continue to be based on revenues collected, meaning that school districts will likely absorb most of those costs.
Members are asked to call their state Representatives and ask them to support an amendment that would more fairly allocate the costs of the tax collection committee amount all its members.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
How Pennsylvania Pays for Education
Here's a great article from the Inquirer taking a look at the schools funding problem in Pennsylvania.
Tax Divide
By Anthony R. Wood Posted on Sat, Jun. 14, 2008
After 34 years living in a four-bedroom brick home on a leafy acre in Radnor Township, retirees Karl and Jean Dorschu wanted something smaller, something with less raking and snow shoveling, something less taxing, physically and financially.
They chose to stay in Delaware County, buying a $325,000 two-bedroom house in the Boothwyn section of Upper Chichester Township, 20 miles away.
There, they assumed, their property tax would be much lower than the $7,000 they paid in Radnor. Their new place was half the size and value, on one-fifth the acreage, in a middle-class community without Main Line gilt or top-drawer schools to support.
So much for logic.
After moving in, the Dorschus learned they'd be paying $8,500, or 21 percent more.
In the two years since, their bill has jumped above $9,500.
"If we had a top-notch school district, I wouldn't mind," said Karl Dorschu, 77, a former engineer.
In Radnor, where his three children were educated, 88 percent of the students go on to four-year colleges, compared with 38 percent in the Chichester School District. Radnor students rank among the region's highest in academic performance; Chichester's are in the lower echelon.
All things considered, his tax bill "doesn't make sense," he said. But he is certain of this much: "They're choking us homeowners to death."
Complaints about the property tax - that it's unfair, bewildering, exorbitant, pick a pejorative - may be nothing new. But their volume and intensity are.
The colonial-era system that provides most of the money for America's public schools and local governments is under unprecedented assault, with taxpayer protests, lawsuits or legislative overhauls rumbling through at least 20 states.
Pennsylvania is one.
The state is jigsawed into 3,134 local taxing authorities, including 501 school districts, 2,566 municipalities, and 67 counties - a patchwork among the most manifold in the nation. Here, the chaos and inequities wrought by a flawed, fragmented system are worsening as tax bills rise, the housing market falters, and the economy deteriorates.
An Inquirer analysis of 500,000 tax records in Philadelphia and the four Pennsylvania suburban counties has found wildly disparate property-tax rates that are widening the economic divide between have and have-not towns, and further balkanizing the region.
In poorer communities like the Chichester district's Trainer and Marcus Hook, where houses are modest and commercial property scarce, the effective tax rate (the average annual tax bill as a percentage of the average home value) typically is higher than in wealthier communities. But the analysis also showed that the tax gaps among municipalities were growing, helping to repel influxes of homeowners and businesses into troubled downtowns and hampering their revitalization.
For instance, in some economically distressed parts of eastern Delaware County, such as the six towns of the William Penn School District, the tax rates are nearly six times higher than those in West Conshohocken, a Montgomery County borough jam-packed with office towers. Just five years ago, the rates were 31/2 times higher.
Those poorer communities also tend to have lower-achieving students and far fewer resources than wealthy neighbors. The William Penn district - composed of Aldan, Colwyn, Darby Borough, East Lansdowne, Lansdowne and Yeadon - spends $12,701 per pupil. West Conshohocken is in the Upper Merion district, which spends $18,158.
Between 2002 and 2007 in poorer towns in the suburban counties, increases in millages - the taxes per $1,000 of assessed property value - were double those in affluent communities.
Regionwide in the same period, the average property-tax bill jumped about 25 percent. That far outpaced inflation, and tested many homeowners' ability to pay. The Inquirer found that local taxes now consume about 7 percent of household incomes, up from 5.5 percent five years ago.
Largely to meet the growing needs of schools and municipal governments, property-tax collections in Pennsylvania between just 2002 and 2007 ballooned 39math cq percent, from $10.4 billion to $14.5 billion. Nationally, they soared 40math cq percent, from $288 billion to $404 billion. New Jerseyans paid $22.1 billion last year, up 38math cq percent from $16 billion. The Garden State has the highest average property-tax bill - $6,331 - in the nation.
Boomer backlash
The opposition ranks have swelled along with the bills. They include tax analysts, economists, community-development experts and lawmakers. But the angriest voices belong to increasingly organized blocs of voters.
Many are retirees, an age group hit hard by the rising property taxes - and one that will build into a demographic tsunami of more than 70 million baby boomers, due to begin turning 65 in 2011.
Beware the Me Generation on fixed incomes, free of school-age kids and united by the Web, warns Peter Sepp, a vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, an advocacy group of 350,000 members based in Alexandria, Va.
That "big crop of retirees," he said, will "see less justification for paying huge property taxes."
Pennsylvania already has 35 grassroots groups, representing about 20,000 property owners, that aim to overhaul or abolish the real estate levy. Eight are in Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties.
Protesters also are meeting online at the virtual offices of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalitioncq. A similar site is in the works in New Jersey, which has at least seven activist organizations.
Many groups have emerged in just the last few years, even as the two state legislatures offer rebates from slots revenue and sales taxes.
Last monthmay, Pennsylvania announced it would dole out $613 million in a first installment of property-tax relief from its new gaming industry. In the Philadelphia suburbs this year, an average of $245 will be applied toward bills.
But the much-ballyhooed break brings out the Peggy Lee in John J. McCartney, 73. Is that all there is? wonders the retired registered nurse, who pays $6,000 annually to the Octorara Area School District in Chester County.
"It's nowhere near enough to begin to address the problems that everyone's having," McCartney said, "especially with gasoline prices, and everything else, going up."
Rebates aren't placating the 55+ Coalition, made up of 6,000 residents of more than a dozen adult communities in Delaware County and thought to be the largest citizens tax group in Pennsylvania.
"If ever we have the opportunity [for major change], it's now," said Anthony Santore, 72, a retired hospital administrator from Glen Mills who founded 55+ two years ago.
Rough going in Harrisburg
Its members were among 400 tax activists from across the state who held a raucous rally in Harrisburg on June 2, hoping to fillip a bill that would redesign the system. They were joined by 30 legislators.
Proposed by Rep. Sam Rohrer (R., Berks), House Bill 1275 would replace property levies with a broader state sales tax, extended to such items as sports tickets, dry cleaning and plumbing services. It also would shift the bulk of school funding to the state, which now pays 35.4 percent of education costs, on average. Pennsylvania ranks 44th in the nation in the portion borne by the state.
In a House vote in January, Rohrer's proposal was trounced. It came under withering attack from two dozen special interests who feared it would hurt business.
So Rohrer is trying again, having removed white-collar services such as lawyers' and accountants' fees from his tax list and inserted a limited property tax on commercial real estate.
His tweaked plan remains the most dramatic of three major proposals before the House. But they are alike in one way: All are buried in committee, continuing the legislature's historic reluctance to take up an issue laced with political cyanide.
The key to rectifying the tax disparities among towns and taking the pressure off property taxes lies in bumping up the state's share of public-education costs, the Rendell administration contends.
Gov. Rendell has proposed increasing state aid by a total of $2.6 billion during the next six years, targeting the poorest districts. But his plan's fate in the legislature is uncertain.
Combined with school-tax discounts from slot-machine revenue under the Property Tax Relief Act of 2006, also known as Act 1, the state share of education costs would rise from 35 percent to about 45 percent in 2014, administration spokesman Chuck Ardo said. That would put Pennsylvania near the national average.
Ardo added that the administration had lessened the burden on fixed-income seniors by increasing rebates.
However, in the view of tax activists and their Harrisburg allies, neither the governor nor the legislature is going far enough.
"It makes no sense," said Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola (R., Dauphin), "to use a 19th-century tax to fund 21st-century education."
A flawed system
Even in this miasma of discontent, the property tax finds defenders.
Free of any state or federal claims, it provides a dependable source of income so school districts and municipal governments can both pay their bills and borrow, said Steven Wray, a researcher for the Pennsylvania Economy League, a public-policy research group.
"I can't say I'm a raving fan of it," Wray said. But real estate, he added, is the logical source of local income, and homeowners reap the reward. In Pennsylvania, 80 percent of the tax goes to education. And "the better the schools," he said, "the better the property values are going to be."
Yet even its defenders concede that the system is badly flawed, and that Pennsylvania is an eye-popping measure of just how bad.
Behold the tax madness:
Less is more. In some wealthy communities in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs, residents pay hefty property taxes, up to 10 percent of robust household incomes. Nonetheless, rates in many of the poorest towns are among the highest in the region and, in fact, the country - higher even than New Jersey suburbs of New York City, often cited as national chart-toppers.
Of the 25 suburban municipalities with the steepest rates, 22 are in eastern Delaware County. Of those, 16 rank near the bottom in median income.
Example: In June 2006, Victor Ko bought a $256,900 house on Whalen Court in Upper Darby. The median household income in the Delaware County township is $46,606. Its tax base is dominated by modestly priced homes, while its commercial property is worth less than $900 million.
Ko's tax bill is $6,912.
Also in 2006, Susan Scanlon bought a $259,000 home near the King of Prussia malls in Upper Merion. The Montgomery County township has a median household income of $79,653 and a prodigious tax base. Its commercial property, including the mighty malls, is worth $3.4 billion - almost four times that of Upper Darby.
Scanlon, an Upper Darby native, has a tax bill of $2,080, or less than one-third Ko's.
To have and have not. In the latter half of the 20th century, taxes helped deepen the divide between Philadelphia, where they were high, and the rest of the region, where they typically weren't. But municipal competition for residents and commerce is no longer so clear-cut.
Example: Tax-wise, it doesn't get any worse than in Colwyn. The small, struggling borough in eastern Delaware County has the highest effective property-tax rate in the region - 4.52 percent of the average home value.
But the rate is 0.97 percent in Chester County's East Bradford, a considerably more affluent township, where new tract houses abut bucolic open space.
In 2002, Colwyn's effective tax rate was about four times that of East Bradford. Now it is 4.7 times higher.
Older, poorer towns such as Colwyn are caught in a sorry cycle from which few escape, said Wray, of the Economy League. Their high taxes drive out homeowners and businesses; to compensate for those losses, they hike taxes on those who stay - with predictable results.
From 2002 to 2007 in East Bradford, 140 homes were built, at an average price of $230,000. Only 16, averaging $41,000, went up in Colwyn.
Double whammy. Pennsylvania's rules on property assessment have created two sets of losers. Both often pay higher taxes than the rest of the community where they live and, in a sense, are subsidizing their neighbors. Many don't realize they're getting clobbered.
Owners of newer homes constitute one victim group.
When a county decides to reassess, state law demands that all properties be done at once. The exception is new construction, which is appraised upon completion.
The overwhelming nature of a mass assessment is one reason it is so rarely done. That's a boon for owners of older properties that appreciate; their taxes are based on lower values.
But homes built after a countywide reassessment carry fresher appraisals, closer to 100 percent of current value. Those hapless owners frequently end up paying a higher effective tax rate.
Example: Since Delaware County's last reassessment was completed in 2000, home values in Radnor Township have, in general, appreciated dramatically. Consequently, the average assessment is based on just 46 percent of a property's present worth.
No such break for William and Carol Knott.
They bought a new house on Mill Road last year for $1.8 million, and got hit with a $25,250 tax bill. Elsewhere in Radnor, near downtown Wayne, an older home sold for $2.2 million a few months later; the tax, based on the 2000 reassessment, was $16,141.
Paying $9,000 more in taxes for a house that cost $400,000 less is "just outrageous," Carol Knott said. If she and her husband, a banker, had it to do over, "we would not have bought new construction."
The other group that gets whomped is made up of owners of homes whose values have stagnated or sunk since they were appraised.
Example: In Montgomery County, the average home value has doubled since the last reassessment in 1998. But rates of appreciation have been uneven, to say the least.
Norristown, the county seat, is a down-at-the-heels borough dreaming of a renaissance. More than 7 percent of the homes lost value since 1998. Their assessments generally are double what they should be, and their owners are paying double the taxes.
Buy a cow. Pennsylvania assessment law also extends an array of property-tax exemptions, typically to nonprofit institutions such as hospitals, universities, churches and museums. But a major break also goes to owners of "farmland." They need just 10 acres - or less, if they can show that the land produces an annual minimum of $2,000 in "farm income."
Example: In Chester County, more than $1 billion in "farmland" is off-limits to taxation. That shifts more of the burden to nonfarm residents such as Paul Belleza, whose tax bill is $5,000 - up 67 percent from five years ago.
Belleza lives in the Octorara School District, where about $100 million worth of land is exempt.
"I've got 11 acres with a matchbox house," he said. "I'm paying five times the tax" of nearby landowners.
Belleza said he believed that some people taking the exemption weren't legitimate farmers.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's a tax fraud," he said. "We're subsidizing wealthy landowners who can well afford to pay their own taxes."
School budgets defy cuts
If the property tax remains the chief money source for public education in Pennsylvania, the only way to reduce it is to reduce school spending, significantly.
That is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Taxpayers may rail against perceived Taj Mahal excesses, but the bulk of the typical district budget goes to negotiated salary and benefits packages and state and federally mandated programs. Those costs will keep growing.
In Lower Merion Township, where the average property-tax bill has increased 34 percent in the last five years, the district's $175 million budget has little wiggle room, said Scott Shafer, the district's acting business manager. After labor, mandates and other fixed costs come out, he said, only about $3 million in discretionary money remains.
That reality frustrates tax activists.
Rick Ritter, a founder of the 1,875-member Coatesville Taxpayer Alliance, was so angry about escalating property taxes in his district that in 2006 he ran for the school board on a victorious activist slate.
But after he and his compatriots parsed the Coatesville Area School District's $69.2 million budget, they concluded that 80 percent of costs were locked in for years. They have held the line on school taxes the last three years, but homeowners still are stuck with some of the region's highest taxes: almost $2,000 for every $100,000 of value, plus a 2 percent wage tax. Facing those rates, Ritter's mother-in-law gave up her home and moved in with him.
Encompassing nine communities, the district is an example of the vagaries of school-system boundaries. Its poorest part by far is the city of Coatesville; there, the average home price in 2006 was $120,000, compared with $294,800 across the other towns. Devastated by the loss of the steel industry that once defined it, Coatesville has a painfully sparse tax base, which forces higher rates on everyone in the district.
The circumstances are similar - and the taxes even higher - in the Chichester School District in eastern Delaware County. The district consists of Lower and Upper Chichester Townships and the ravaged riverfront boroughs of Marcus Hook and Trainer.
Upper Chichester, where Karl and Jean Dorschu live, is relatively well-off, with an average home price of $220,165. But in the other three municipalities, the tax base is paper-thin; houses average less than $95,000.
So the district's residents are forced to dig deep at tax time, paying up to $3,300 for every $100,000 in property value.
Had they stayed in Radnor, the Dorschus would be paying $1,138 per $100,000 in value. That district includes just one township, with $3.6 billion worth of real estate. That's four times the total for all property in the Chichester district.
The builder of the Dorschus' new home seriously underestimated the tax bill, although Karl Dorschu said he believed not even the builder had expected the levy to be so high.
Classical-music lovers, the couple were drawn to Boothwyn because of its easy commute to the Kimmel Center and its proximity to I-95 and the Claymont, Del., train station. So they got what they wanted, and something they didn't.
"If we had known," he said, "we probably would not have settled here."
Tax Divide
By Anthony R. Wood Posted on Sat, Jun. 14, 2008
After 34 years living in a four-bedroom brick home on a leafy acre in Radnor Township, retirees Karl and Jean Dorschu wanted something smaller, something with less raking and snow shoveling, something less taxing, physically and financially.
They chose to stay in Delaware County, buying a $325,000 two-bedroom house in the Boothwyn section of Upper Chichester Township, 20 miles away.
There, they assumed, their property tax would be much lower than the $7,000 they paid in Radnor. Their new place was half the size and value, on one-fifth the acreage, in a middle-class community without Main Line gilt or top-drawer schools to support.
So much for logic.
After moving in, the Dorschus learned they'd be paying $8,500, or 21 percent more.
In the two years since, their bill has jumped above $9,500.
"If we had a top-notch school district, I wouldn't mind," said Karl Dorschu, 77, a former engineer.
In Radnor, where his three children were educated, 88 percent of the students go on to four-year colleges, compared with 38 percent in the Chichester School District. Radnor students rank among the region's highest in academic performance; Chichester's are in the lower echelon.
All things considered, his tax bill "doesn't make sense," he said. But he is certain of this much: "They're choking us homeowners to death."
Complaints about the property tax - that it's unfair, bewildering, exorbitant, pick a pejorative - may be nothing new. But their volume and intensity are.
The colonial-era system that provides most of the money for America's public schools and local governments is under unprecedented assault, with taxpayer protests, lawsuits or legislative overhauls rumbling through at least 20 states.
Pennsylvania is one.
The state is jigsawed into 3,134 local taxing authorities, including 501 school districts, 2,566 municipalities, and 67 counties - a patchwork among the most manifold in the nation. Here, the chaos and inequities wrought by a flawed, fragmented system are worsening as tax bills rise, the housing market falters, and the economy deteriorates.
An Inquirer analysis of 500,000 tax records in Philadelphia and the four Pennsylvania suburban counties has found wildly disparate property-tax rates that are widening the economic divide between have and have-not towns, and further balkanizing the region.
In poorer communities like the Chichester district's Trainer and Marcus Hook, where houses are modest and commercial property scarce, the effective tax rate (the average annual tax bill as a percentage of the average home value) typically is higher than in wealthier communities. But the analysis also showed that the tax gaps among municipalities were growing, helping to repel influxes of homeowners and businesses into troubled downtowns and hampering their revitalization.
For instance, in some economically distressed parts of eastern Delaware County, such as the six towns of the William Penn School District, the tax rates are nearly six times higher than those in West Conshohocken, a Montgomery County borough jam-packed with office towers. Just five years ago, the rates were 31/2 times higher.
Those poorer communities also tend to have lower-achieving students and far fewer resources than wealthy neighbors. The William Penn district - composed of Aldan, Colwyn, Darby Borough, East Lansdowne, Lansdowne and Yeadon - spends $12,701 per pupil. West Conshohocken is in the Upper Merion district, which spends $18,158.
Between 2002 and 2007 in poorer towns in the suburban counties, increases in millages - the taxes per $1,000 of assessed property value - were double those in affluent communities.
Regionwide in the same period, the average property-tax bill jumped about 25 percent. That far outpaced inflation, and tested many homeowners' ability to pay. The Inquirer found that local taxes now consume about 7 percent of household incomes, up from 5.5 percent five years ago.
Largely to meet the growing needs of schools and municipal governments, property-tax collections in Pennsylvania between just 2002 and 2007 ballooned 39math cq percent, from $10.4 billion to $14.5 billion. Nationally, they soared 40math cq percent, from $288 billion to $404 billion. New Jerseyans paid $22.1 billion last year, up 38math cq percent from $16 billion. The Garden State has the highest average property-tax bill - $6,331 - in the nation.
Boomer backlash
The opposition ranks have swelled along with the bills. They include tax analysts, economists, community-development experts and lawmakers. But the angriest voices belong to increasingly organized blocs of voters.
Many are retirees, an age group hit hard by the rising property taxes - and one that will build into a demographic tsunami of more than 70 million baby boomers, due to begin turning 65 in 2011.
Beware the Me Generation on fixed incomes, free of school-age kids and united by the Web, warns Peter Sepp, a vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, an advocacy group of 350,000 members based in Alexandria, Va.
That "big crop of retirees," he said, will "see less justification for paying huge property taxes."
Pennsylvania already has 35 grassroots groups, representing about 20,000 property owners, that aim to overhaul or abolish the real estate levy. Eight are in Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties.
Protesters also are meeting online at the virtual offices of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalitioncq. A similar site is in the works in New Jersey, which has at least seven activist organizations.
Many groups have emerged in just the last few years, even as the two state legislatures offer rebates from slots revenue and sales taxes.
Last monthmay, Pennsylvania announced it would dole out $613 million in a first installment of property-tax relief from its new gaming industry. In the Philadelphia suburbs this year, an average of $245 will be applied toward bills.
But the much-ballyhooed break brings out the Peggy Lee in John J. McCartney, 73. Is that all there is? wonders the retired registered nurse, who pays $6,000 annually to the Octorara Area School District in Chester County.
"It's nowhere near enough to begin to address the problems that everyone's having," McCartney said, "especially with gasoline prices, and everything else, going up."
Rebates aren't placating the 55+ Coalition, made up of 6,000 residents of more than a dozen adult communities in Delaware County and thought to be the largest citizens tax group in Pennsylvania.
"If ever we have the opportunity [for major change], it's now," said Anthony Santore, 72, a retired hospital administrator from Glen Mills who founded 55+ two years ago.
Rough going in Harrisburg
Its members were among 400 tax activists from across the state who held a raucous rally in Harrisburg on June 2, hoping to fillip a bill that would redesign the system. They were joined by 30 legislators.
Proposed by Rep. Sam Rohrer (R., Berks), House Bill 1275 would replace property levies with a broader state sales tax, extended to such items as sports tickets, dry cleaning and plumbing services. It also would shift the bulk of school funding to the state, which now pays 35.4 percent of education costs, on average. Pennsylvania ranks 44th in the nation in the portion borne by the state.
In a House vote in January, Rohrer's proposal was trounced. It came under withering attack from two dozen special interests who feared it would hurt business.
So Rohrer is trying again, having removed white-collar services such as lawyers' and accountants' fees from his tax list and inserted a limited property tax on commercial real estate.
His tweaked plan remains the most dramatic of three major proposals before the House. But they are alike in one way: All are buried in committee, continuing the legislature's historic reluctance to take up an issue laced with political cyanide.
The key to rectifying the tax disparities among towns and taking the pressure off property taxes lies in bumping up the state's share of public-education costs, the Rendell administration contends.
Gov. Rendell has proposed increasing state aid by a total of $2.6 billion during the next six years, targeting the poorest districts. But his plan's fate in the legislature is uncertain.
Combined with school-tax discounts from slot-machine revenue under the Property Tax Relief Act of 2006, also known as Act 1, the state share of education costs would rise from 35 percent to about 45 percent in 2014, administration spokesman Chuck Ardo said. That would put Pennsylvania near the national average.
Ardo added that the administration had lessened the burden on fixed-income seniors by increasing rebates.
However, in the view of tax activists and their Harrisburg allies, neither the governor nor the legislature is going far enough.
"It makes no sense," said Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola (R., Dauphin), "to use a 19th-century tax to fund 21st-century education."
A flawed system
Even in this miasma of discontent, the property tax finds defenders.
Free of any state or federal claims, it provides a dependable source of income so school districts and municipal governments can both pay their bills and borrow, said Steven Wray, a researcher for the Pennsylvania Economy League, a public-policy research group.
"I can't say I'm a raving fan of it," Wray said. But real estate, he added, is the logical source of local income, and homeowners reap the reward. In Pennsylvania, 80 percent of the tax goes to education. And "the better the schools," he said, "the better the property values are going to be."
Yet even its defenders concede that the system is badly flawed, and that Pennsylvania is an eye-popping measure of just how bad.
Behold the tax madness:
Less is more. In some wealthy communities in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs, residents pay hefty property taxes, up to 10 percent of robust household incomes. Nonetheless, rates in many of the poorest towns are among the highest in the region and, in fact, the country - higher even than New Jersey suburbs of New York City, often cited as national chart-toppers.
Of the 25 suburban municipalities with the steepest rates, 22 are in eastern Delaware County. Of those, 16 rank near the bottom in median income.
Example: In June 2006, Victor Ko bought a $256,900 house on Whalen Court in Upper Darby. The median household income in the Delaware County township is $46,606. Its tax base is dominated by modestly priced homes, while its commercial property is worth less than $900 million.
Ko's tax bill is $6,912.
Also in 2006, Susan Scanlon bought a $259,000 home near the King of Prussia malls in Upper Merion. The Montgomery County township has a median household income of $79,653 and a prodigious tax base. Its commercial property, including the mighty malls, is worth $3.4 billion - almost four times that of Upper Darby.
Scanlon, an Upper Darby native, has a tax bill of $2,080, or less than one-third Ko's.
To have and have not. In the latter half of the 20th century, taxes helped deepen the divide between Philadelphia, where they were high, and the rest of the region, where they typically weren't. But municipal competition for residents and commerce is no longer so clear-cut.
Example: Tax-wise, it doesn't get any worse than in Colwyn. The small, struggling borough in eastern Delaware County has the highest effective property-tax rate in the region - 4.52 percent of the average home value.
But the rate is 0.97 percent in Chester County's East Bradford, a considerably more affluent township, where new tract houses abut bucolic open space.
In 2002, Colwyn's effective tax rate was about four times that of East Bradford. Now it is 4.7 times higher.
Older, poorer towns such as Colwyn are caught in a sorry cycle from which few escape, said Wray, of the Economy League. Their high taxes drive out homeowners and businesses; to compensate for those losses, they hike taxes on those who stay - with predictable results.
From 2002 to 2007 in East Bradford, 140 homes were built, at an average price of $230,000. Only 16, averaging $41,000, went up in Colwyn.
Double whammy. Pennsylvania's rules on property assessment have created two sets of losers. Both often pay higher taxes than the rest of the community where they live and, in a sense, are subsidizing their neighbors. Many don't realize they're getting clobbered.
Owners of newer homes constitute one victim group.
When a county decides to reassess, state law demands that all properties be done at once. The exception is new construction, which is appraised upon completion.
The overwhelming nature of a mass assessment is one reason it is so rarely done. That's a boon for owners of older properties that appreciate; their taxes are based on lower values.
But homes built after a countywide reassessment carry fresher appraisals, closer to 100 percent of current value. Those hapless owners frequently end up paying a higher effective tax rate.
Example: Since Delaware County's last reassessment was completed in 2000, home values in Radnor Township have, in general, appreciated dramatically. Consequently, the average assessment is based on just 46 percent of a property's present worth.
No such break for William and Carol Knott.
They bought a new house on Mill Road last year for $1.8 million, and got hit with a $25,250 tax bill. Elsewhere in Radnor, near downtown Wayne, an older home sold for $2.2 million a few months later; the tax, based on the 2000 reassessment, was $16,141.
Paying $9,000 more in taxes for a house that cost $400,000 less is "just outrageous," Carol Knott said. If she and her husband, a banker, had it to do over, "we would not have bought new construction."
The other group that gets whomped is made up of owners of homes whose values have stagnated or sunk since they were appraised.
Example: In Montgomery County, the average home value has doubled since the last reassessment in 1998. But rates of appreciation have been uneven, to say the least.
Norristown, the county seat, is a down-at-the-heels borough dreaming of a renaissance. More than 7 percent of the homes lost value since 1998. Their assessments generally are double what they should be, and their owners are paying double the taxes.
Buy a cow. Pennsylvania assessment law also extends an array of property-tax exemptions, typically to nonprofit institutions such as hospitals, universities, churches and museums. But a major break also goes to owners of "farmland." They need just 10 acres - or less, if they can show that the land produces an annual minimum of $2,000 in "farm income."
Example: In Chester County, more than $1 billion in "farmland" is off-limits to taxation. That shifts more of the burden to nonfarm residents such as Paul Belleza, whose tax bill is $5,000 - up 67 percent from five years ago.
Belleza lives in the Octorara School District, where about $100 million worth of land is exempt.
"I've got 11 acres with a matchbox house," he said. "I'm paying five times the tax" of nearby landowners.
Belleza said he believed that some people taking the exemption weren't legitimate farmers.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's a tax fraud," he said. "We're subsidizing wealthy landowners who can well afford to pay their own taxes."
School budgets defy cuts
If the property tax remains the chief money source for public education in Pennsylvania, the only way to reduce it is to reduce school spending, significantly.
That is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Taxpayers may rail against perceived Taj Mahal excesses, but the bulk of the typical district budget goes to negotiated salary and benefits packages and state and federally mandated programs. Those costs will keep growing.
In Lower Merion Township, where the average property-tax bill has increased 34 percent in the last five years, the district's $175 million budget has little wiggle room, said Scott Shafer, the district's acting business manager. After labor, mandates and other fixed costs come out, he said, only about $3 million in discretionary money remains.
That reality frustrates tax activists.
Rick Ritter, a founder of the 1,875-member Coatesville Taxpayer Alliance, was so angry about escalating property taxes in his district that in 2006 he ran for the school board on a victorious activist slate.
But after he and his compatriots parsed the Coatesville Area School District's $69.2 million budget, they concluded that 80 percent of costs were locked in for years. They have held the line on school taxes the last three years, but homeowners still are stuck with some of the region's highest taxes: almost $2,000 for every $100,000 of value, plus a 2 percent wage tax. Facing those rates, Ritter's mother-in-law gave up her home and moved in with him.
Encompassing nine communities, the district is an example of the vagaries of school-system boundaries. Its poorest part by far is the city of Coatesville; there, the average home price in 2006 was $120,000, compared with $294,800 across the other towns. Devastated by the loss of the steel industry that once defined it, Coatesville has a painfully sparse tax base, which forces higher rates on everyone in the district.
The circumstances are similar - and the taxes even higher - in the Chichester School District in eastern Delaware County. The district consists of Lower and Upper Chichester Townships and the ravaged riverfront boroughs of Marcus Hook and Trainer.
Upper Chichester, where Karl and Jean Dorschu live, is relatively well-off, with an average home price of $220,165. But in the other three municipalities, the tax base is paper-thin; houses average less than $95,000.
So the district's residents are forced to dig deep at tax time, paying up to $3,300 for every $100,000 in property value.
Had they stayed in Radnor, the Dorschus would be paying $1,138 per $100,000 in value. That district includes just one township, with $3.6 billion worth of real estate. That's four times the total for all property in the Chichester district.
The builder of the Dorschus' new home seriously underestimated the tax bill, although Karl Dorschu said he believed not even the builder had expected the levy to be so high.
Classical-music lovers, the couple were drawn to Boothwyn because of its easy commute to the Kimmel Center and its proximity to I-95 and the Claymont, Del., train station. So they got what they wanted, and something they didn't.
"If we had known," he said, "we probably would not have settled here."
Friday, June 13, 2008
Rendell Budget Plan
While the merry maulers of Morrisville are busy dismantling the school system, let's take out a moment to imagine how we could lower our taxes AND keep this a K-12 district. Answer: Change the funding formula.
So what are you doing about getting things changed? Let's keep the kids here and lower our taxes. Is there any Morrisville resident who DOESN'T see this as a win-win situation?
Rendell's school-funding plan is creditable
Carl M. Buchholz is CEO of Blank Rome L.L.P.
David L. Cohen is executive vice president of Comcast Corp.
Joseph A. Frick is CEO of Independence Blue Cross
The future of our region's economic success depends on many factors: competitive tax rates, upgrades to our infrastructure, and high-quality schools that prepare every student for success in the workplace or college.
On the education front, the General Assembly and Gov. Rendell are working now to formulate a new plan to equitably distribute additional state funding to Pennsylvania's 501 public school districts.
The good news is that, over the last five years, Pennsylvania has seen an excellent return on its historic investments in full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, smaller classes, more challenging high schools, and other improvements.
Pennsylvania is one of only nine states to make significant gains in elementary-school reading and math since 2003, which shows we are moving in the right direction.
Yet, even with these gains, a stunning 30 percent of the students who graduate in the school districts in the four suburban Philadelphia counties cannot read and do math at the 11th-grade level. The region's employers pay the price for this skills gap in unfilled jobs, increased employee-training costs, and lost economic opportunity.
The problem is that too many of our region's school districts lack the adequate resources necessary to deliver a high-quality education.
The 2007 Costing-Out Report found a $4.6 billion shortfall. This means students in the majority of the state's school districts are missing out on the educational opportunities proven to boost students' achievement levels.
Why? Because schools lack sufficient funds to provide quality education.
To this end, Rendell has proposed a $2.6 billion plan to move school districts across the state toward the adequate funding targets determined in the costing-out report. The proposal places the state on a pathway to a more reasonable school-funding model, where the state appropriately shoulders 50 percent of public education costs.
In addition, this proposal mandates that a large percentage of these new state funds be spent to expand the proven programs that result in student success, especially for struggling learners.
This targeted funding is to be spent on early-childhood education, extra support for struggling students, more classroom time for teaching and learning, quality training for educators, improved curricula and courses, and smaller classes.
In our region alone, the costing-out study found that our school districts need at least $1.4 billion to ensure our students get the quality of education necessary to meet the expectations of our colleges and employers. Two examples of the shortfall in funding are:
The Norristown School District in Montgomery County is $3,000 per pupil short. Under the governor's proposal, this district would receive nearly $10 million in new state aid, cutting their funding gap more than a third.
The Bristol Township School District in Bucks County is $2,100 per pupil short. The governor's proposal pumps $9 million into the district, cutting its funding gap in half.
For the last few years, this region has seen solid economic growth. However, just like every region in the nation, we are dealing with the impact of a national recession, increased competition, and deteriorating infrastructure.
But there is one economic challenge that is of our own making - poorly prepared high school graduates from underfunded school districts. In large part, this problem is a result of the gradual decline in the percentage of state funding to our schools.
Our region's vitality and prosperity depend in large part on successful deliberations by state leaders to boost funding for schools in a fair and equitable manner and help close the school-funding gap within the next few years.
The governor's proposal is a significant step in the right direction.
So what are you doing about getting things changed? Let's keep the kids here and lower our taxes. Is there any Morrisville resident who DOESN'T see this as a win-win situation?
Rendell's school-funding plan is creditable
Carl M. Buchholz is CEO of Blank Rome L.L.P.
David L. Cohen is executive vice president of Comcast Corp.
Joseph A. Frick is CEO of Independence Blue Cross
The future of our region's economic success depends on many factors: competitive tax rates, upgrades to our infrastructure, and high-quality schools that prepare every student for success in the workplace or college.
On the education front, the General Assembly and Gov. Rendell are working now to formulate a new plan to equitably distribute additional state funding to Pennsylvania's 501 public school districts.
The good news is that, over the last five years, Pennsylvania has seen an excellent return on its historic investments in full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, smaller classes, more challenging high schools, and other improvements.
Pennsylvania is one of only nine states to make significant gains in elementary-school reading and math since 2003, which shows we are moving in the right direction.
Yet, even with these gains, a stunning 30 percent of the students who graduate in the school districts in the four suburban Philadelphia counties cannot read and do math at the 11th-grade level. The region's employers pay the price for this skills gap in unfilled jobs, increased employee-training costs, and lost economic opportunity.
The problem is that too many of our region's school districts lack the adequate resources necessary to deliver a high-quality education.
The 2007 Costing-Out Report found a $4.6 billion shortfall. This means students in the majority of the state's school districts are missing out on the educational opportunities proven to boost students' achievement levels.
Why? Because schools lack sufficient funds to provide quality education.
To this end, Rendell has proposed a $2.6 billion plan to move school districts across the state toward the adequate funding targets determined in the costing-out report. The proposal places the state on a pathway to a more reasonable school-funding model, where the state appropriately shoulders 50 percent of public education costs.
In addition, this proposal mandates that a large percentage of these new state funds be spent to expand the proven programs that result in student success, especially for struggling learners.
This targeted funding is to be spent on early-childhood education, extra support for struggling students, more classroom time for teaching and learning, quality training for educators, improved curricula and courses, and smaller classes.
In our region alone, the costing-out study found that our school districts need at least $1.4 billion to ensure our students get the quality of education necessary to meet the expectations of our colleges and employers. Two examples of the shortfall in funding are:
The Norristown School District in Montgomery County is $3,000 per pupil short. Under the governor's proposal, this district would receive nearly $10 million in new state aid, cutting their funding gap more than a third.
The Bristol Township School District in Bucks County is $2,100 per pupil short. The governor's proposal pumps $9 million into the district, cutting its funding gap in half.
For the last few years, this region has seen solid economic growth. However, just like every region in the nation, we are dealing with the impact of a national recession, increased competition, and deteriorating infrastructure.
But there is one economic challenge that is of our own making - poorly prepared high school graduates from underfunded school districts. In large part, this problem is a result of the gradual decline in the percentage of state funding to our schools.
Our region's vitality and prosperity depend in large part on successful deliberations by state leaders to boost funding for schools in a fair and equitable manner and help close the school-funding gap within the next few years.
The governor's proposal is a significant step in the right direction.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
We Didn't Know How Much We DIDN'T Know
From the BCCT this morning. First is a guest opinion on how destroying the school system will only destroy the community. This is something that the people here on this blog have been saying for months now.
Next is a "Thumbs up" from the BCCT on the Tech High School budget mess. I'm not sure I agree completely. Yes, it's great that the logjam was broken, but why does it take international class brinksmanship and public histrionics to force others to the negotiating table simply to do the right thing for the kids AND the taxpayers? There's also praise for the Pennsbury citizens commission and praise for the state House Education Committee's approval of the new school funding formula. If you have not clicked on the green link to the left and registered your displeasure with your elected officials, why are you waiting?
Lastly, there is an article on the Tech School graduates themselves. Here's the heart of the "why" when people ask "why do we have a school system?" Answer: It's an investment in the future.
Destroying our schools will only destroy our community
By WILLIAM S. UMEK
Current Morrisville school board members were elected based on a platform of not raising taxes and doing away with a plan to build a new school, which would have resulted in many more positive results than negative ones for the community.
Now, they are in a position whereby they cannot meet the promise of not increasing taxes without having to tax us double next year (time to start saving money, so they can save face) and they are on the edge of getting Morrisville sued by the state. We went from a board that wanted to improve the borough and the education
we provide our children to one that wants to deteriorate (the borough) to the point that the state would have to step in.
How did we end up here? New schools create a sense of pride, induce homebuyers to move in and generally raise the bar for the community. They also cost money, which is what people generally use to invest in their future.
Morrisville residents have voted to stagnate and deteriorate; the opposite of improving. What pride is there in a rundown school and a community that votes against improving them? Who wants to move into a community that does not invest in the future of their children?
I have seen dozens of nice homes that are still for sale from over a year ago. As for raising the bar and investing in our future, how much more money do I want to invest in my home or would the right move be to get out before it is too late?
If current board members have to eat their words and raise taxes, so be it. I can’t fathom that any one would ever believe that undeliverable promise in this day and age. I am sure that being sued by the state and defending the half-witted decision to not fund education will cost more than the amount our taxes increase. This is not grade school where you get elected to class president by convincing people you will have soda coming out of the water fountains.
At that level there are not any repercussions for this inability to think a plan and a promise through to a feasible conclusion. However, there are repercussions when you are running a school board and while it may not turn out well for the board members, the real issue is the long-term effects this will have on Morrisville Borough, its students and future residents.
We need to find a way to remedy this. Unfortunately, one way has been missed by the board not voting to take advantage of state exceptions to raising taxes. It would be nice to believe and one would expect that the new school board members would know how to do their job. Apparently they do not, hence the situation we are in (unless they planned on creating this mess).
It does seem that there are many experienced, smart and bright people in the district who can guide the board in making timely and informed decisions. Reba Dunford is one such person who has presented a sensible option. But was this suggested before or after the board’s decision in January? If it was after, I wish she could have made it before. And while she is not to blame for the position the board has put us in, it would be a great idea for the people of this community like her, who have the knowledge and understand how a school board should operate, to pitch in and make suggestions in line with improving our school situation. It is not a matter of being paid or not. It is a matter of improving OUR community.
My plea to the residents of Morrisville is that we come together as a community to fix this. We need to offer our experience, regardless of party and preference to the current board.
My plea to the board is to seek out the help they need to make accurate and timely decisions and to be open to the suggestions of those with more experience than themselves. We can come together, show what a great sense of community we have and put ourselves on the right track — or we can begin the process of decline into a borough that the state labels financially distressed.
I would prefer that Morrisville be labeled as a great place to live and to raise a family.
William S. Umek has lived in Morrisville for 10 years and has three boys who attend school in the district.
------------------------------------
Thumbs Up
To the Bensalem school board for finally voting last week to end the logjam that kept the Bucks County Technical High School from implementing its $21.7 million budget for the 2008-09 school year. The board voted unanimously for the budget only after the tech school’s joint board committee agreed to tackle a controversial funding formula this summer.
The agreement to approve the budget means that each sending district’s share of the cost of running the comprehensive tech school will increase 4.4 percent.
The Bensalem, Bristol, Bristol Township, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school districts send students to the tech school for training in about three dozen trades, along with academics. Bristol Township, Bensalem and Morrisville have complained about the cost-sharing arrangement with the other districts.
We hope that representatives of all the districts on the joint board committee will come up with a proper cost-sharing arrangement this summer to avoid this thorny issue in the future.
To the Pennsbury school board’s citizens advisory budget committee and board member Gene Dolnick, who suggested forming the panel.
The idea was to get residents involved in the budget process beyond just commenting (read complaining) after a budget’s been proposed. The goal, in addition to smoothing public reaction to almost inevitable tax hikes, is to take advantage of expertise in the community and, perhaps, forestall a tax increase.
The committee attempted to do that by recommending ways to cut costs and generate revenue. We encourage the board to give the panel’s recommendations serious consideration. And we encourage other school boards to follow Pennsbury’s lead and form their own citizen budget panels.
To the State House Education Committee, which voted in favor of a new school funding formula.
The new formula for supplemental state funding, if approved by the Legislature, would take into consideration enrollment, the number of low-income students and English-language learners, district size and regional cost differences.
This would help ensure that the needs of every district are adequately addressed, thus creating the opportunity for each district to provide every student with a quality education.
We encourage the full House to likewise pass the measure and the Senate to adopt a similar bill.
------------------------------------
Students plotting out their futures
Graduates of the tech school’s civil engineering class, one of just a handful in the U.S., can walk into jobs that pay between $13 and $15 per hour.
By JOAN HELLYER
Sean Gosner said he has been mistaken for a space traveler while working on a project at Bucks County Technical High School.
“One guy said, ‘Hey, that’s a cool jetpack,’” Sean, 17, a tech school junior, said of the global positioning system he carries on his back while collecting data for the civil engineering project.
But don’t think that Sean minds the onlooker confusion. “I like using the GPS unit for receiving information and walking around to get the shots,” the Bristol Township resident said.
Students in Bob Hale’s civil engineering class have fanned out across the approximate 45-acre campus off Wistar Road in Bristol Township for the past several weeks to record data about the property.
The high school juniors use global positioning systems linked to six satellites and data collectors to record information that they bring back into the school and download on their computers. Information collected during the course of three marking periods will be used to create maps of the school property, Hale said.
The GPS instrument provides the students with coordinates and data on the tech school complex including the building and its surrounding driveways, vegetation and boundary lines, students said.
“Come 50 toward us, in a straight line,” BCTHS junior Anthony Schaffer, 17, said Thursday afternoon to project partner Lady Venegas, as they prepared to record elevation information in a corner of the school’s main courtyard.
Anthony, a Middletown resident, said he’s learned some valuable lessons while doing the project at the comprehensive technical high school, which serves the Bensalem, Bristol, Bristol Township, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school districts.
“I’m smarter than I thought I was. We didn’t know how much we know,” Anthony said.
The GPS instruments and data collectors were secured through grants and donations from local engineers, Hale said. The students said they use that equipment and other skills including measurements, geometric equations, field notes and research skills they have developed during the last three years to do their work.
The project is designed to help students understand how to make sure the original project was done according to plan, Hale said. Their completed work will be referred to an “as built plan” if it proves the school complex was built according to plan, he said.
The exercise helps students see what they would actually do if they were land surveyors, Hale said.
The tech school’s civil engineering class is one of just a handful of civil engineering classes across the United States, the teacher said.
Students who graduate from the civil engineering class generally are able to secure land surveying-type jobs that pay between $13 and $15 per hour, Hale said. They can also pursue various careers in civil engineering, land surveying, architecture and environmental protection with additional schooling, the tech school teacher said.
If students earn a two-year degree in any of those backgrounds, they’ll likely be able to secure a $30,000 annual salary, he said. A four-year degree will provide an extra $10,000 in annual income, Hale estimated.
An advanced degree will bring home a $65,000 annual salary, and civil engineers who are licensed can make a six-figure salary, he said.
“We’re beyond high school students,” BCTHS junior Dan Quinn, 17, said. “The kids who have already graduated said it has done wonders for them and they already know what they’re doing when they get to college.”
Next is a "Thumbs up" from the BCCT on the Tech High School budget mess. I'm not sure I agree completely. Yes, it's great that the logjam was broken, but why does it take international class brinksmanship and public histrionics to force others to the negotiating table simply to do the right thing for the kids AND the taxpayers? There's also praise for the Pennsbury citizens commission and praise for the state House Education Committee's approval of the new school funding formula. If you have not clicked on the green link to the left and registered your displeasure with your elected officials, why are you waiting?
Lastly, there is an article on the Tech School graduates themselves. Here's the heart of the "why" when people ask "why do we have a school system?" Answer: It's an investment in the future.
Destroying our schools will only destroy our community
By WILLIAM S. UMEK
Current Morrisville school board members were elected based on a platform of not raising taxes and doing away with a plan to build a new school, which would have resulted in many more positive results than negative ones for the community.
Now, they are in a position whereby they cannot meet the promise of not increasing taxes without having to tax us double next year (time to start saving money, so they can save face) and they are on the edge of getting Morrisville sued by the state. We went from a board that wanted to improve the borough and the education
we provide our children to one that wants to deteriorate (the borough) to the point that the state would have to step in.
How did we end up here? New schools create a sense of pride, induce homebuyers to move in and generally raise the bar for the community. They also cost money, which is what people generally use to invest in their future.
Morrisville residents have voted to stagnate and deteriorate; the opposite of improving. What pride is there in a rundown school and a community that votes against improving them? Who wants to move into a community that does not invest in the future of their children?
I have seen dozens of nice homes that are still for sale from over a year ago. As for raising the bar and investing in our future, how much more money do I want to invest in my home or would the right move be to get out before it is too late?
If current board members have to eat their words and raise taxes, so be it. I can’t fathom that any one would ever believe that undeliverable promise in this day and age. I am sure that being sued by the state and defending the half-witted decision to not fund education will cost more than the amount our taxes increase. This is not grade school where you get elected to class president by convincing people you will have soda coming out of the water fountains.
At that level there are not any repercussions for this inability to think a plan and a promise through to a feasible conclusion. However, there are repercussions when you are running a school board and while it may not turn out well for the board members, the real issue is the long-term effects this will have on Morrisville Borough, its students and future residents.
We need to find a way to remedy this. Unfortunately, one way has been missed by the board not voting to take advantage of state exceptions to raising taxes. It would be nice to believe and one would expect that the new school board members would know how to do their job. Apparently they do not, hence the situation we are in (unless they planned on creating this mess).
It does seem that there are many experienced, smart and bright people in the district who can guide the board in making timely and informed decisions. Reba Dunford is one such person who has presented a sensible option. But was this suggested before or after the board’s decision in January? If it was after, I wish she could have made it before. And while she is not to blame for the position the board has put us in, it would be a great idea for the people of this community like her, who have the knowledge and understand how a school board should operate, to pitch in and make suggestions in line with improving our school situation. It is not a matter of being paid or not. It is a matter of improving OUR community.
My plea to the residents of Morrisville is that we come together as a community to fix this. We need to offer our experience, regardless of party and preference to the current board.
My plea to the board is to seek out the help they need to make accurate and timely decisions and to be open to the suggestions of those with more experience than themselves. We can come together, show what a great sense of community we have and put ourselves on the right track — or we can begin the process of decline into a borough that the state labels financially distressed.
I would prefer that Morrisville be labeled as a great place to live and to raise a family.
William S. Umek has lived in Morrisville for 10 years and has three boys who attend school in the district.
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Thumbs Up
To the Bensalem school board for finally voting last week to end the logjam that kept the Bucks County Technical High School from implementing its $21.7 million budget for the 2008-09 school year. The board voted unanimously for the budget only after the tech school’s joint board committee agreed to tackle a controversial funding formula this summer.
The agreement to approve the budget means that each sending district’s share of the cost of running the comprehensive tech school will increase 4.4 percent.
The Bensalem, Bristol, Bristol Township, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school districts send students to the tech school for training in about three dozen trades, along with academics. Bristol Township, Bensalem and Morrisville have complained about the cost-sharing arrangement with the other districts.
We hope that representatives of all the districts on the joint board committee will come up with a proper cost-sharing arrangement this summer to avoid this thorny issue in the future.
To the Pennsbury school board’s citizens advisory budget committee and board member Gene Dolnick, who suggested forming the panel.
The idea was to get residents involved in the budget process beyond just commenting (read complaining) after a budget’s been proposed. The goal, in addition to smoothing public reaction to almost inevitable tax hikes, is to take advantage of expertise in the community and, perhaps, forestall a tax increase.
The committee attempted to do that by recommending ways to cut costs and generate revenue. We encourage the board to give the panel’s recommendations serious consideration. And we encourage other school boards to follow Pennsbury’s lead and form their own citizen budget panels.
To the State House Education Committee, which voted in favor of a new school funding formula.
The new formula for supplemental state funding, if approved by the Legislature, would take into consideration enrollment, the number of low-income students and English-language learners, district size and regional cost differences.
This would help ensure that the needs of every district are adequately addressed, thus creating the opportunity for each district to provide every student with a quality education.
We encourage the full House to likewise pass the measure and the Senate to adopt a similar bill.
------------------------------------
Students plotting out their futures
Graduates of the tech school’s civil engineering class, one of just a handful in the U.S., can walk into jobs that pay between $13 and $15 per hour.
By JOAN HELLYER
Sean Gosner said he has been mistaken for a space traveler while working on a project at Bucks County Technical High School.
“One guy said, ‘Hey, that’s a cool jetpack,’” Sean, 17, a tech school junior, said of the global positioning system he carries on his back while collecting data for the civil engineering project.
But don’t think that Sean minds the onlooker confusion. “I like using the GPS unit for receiving information and walking around to get the shots,” the Bristol Township resident said.
Students in Bob Hale’s civil engineering class have fanned out across the approximate 45-acre campus off Wistar Road in Bristol Township for the past several weeks to record data about the property.
The high school juniors use global positioning systems linked to six satellites and data collectors to record information that they bring back into the school and download on their computers. Information collected during the course of three marking periods will be used to create maps of the school property, Hale said.
The GPS instrument provides the students with coordinates and data on the tech school complex including the building and its surrounding driveways, vegetation and boundary lines, students said.
“Come 50 toward us, in a straight line,” BCTHS junior Anthony Schaffer, 17, said Thursday afternoon to project partner Lady Venegas, as they prepared to record elevation information in a corner of the school’s main courtyard.
Anthony, a Middletown resident, said he’s learned some valuable lessons while doing the project at the comprehensive technical high school, which serves the Bensalem, Bristol, Bristol Township, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school districts.
“I’m smarter than I thought I was. We didn’t know how much we know,” Anthony said.
The GPS instruments and data collectors were secured through grants and donations from local engineers, Hale said. The students said they use that equipment and other skills including measurements, geometric equations, field notes and research skills they have developed during the last three years to do their work.
The project is designed to help students understand how to make sure the original project was done according to plan, Hale said. Their completed work will be referred to an “as built plan” if it proves the school complex was built according to plan, he said.
The exercise helps students see what they would actually do if they were land surveyors, Hale said.
The tech school’s civil engineering class is one of just a handful of civil engineering classes across the United States, the teacher said.
Students who graduate from the civil engineering class generally are able to secure land surveying-type jobs that pay between $13 and $15 per hour, Hale said. They can also pursue various careers in civil engineering, land surveying, architecture and environmental protection with additional schooling, the tech school teacher said.
If students earn a two-year degree in any of those backgrounds, they’ll likely be able to secure a $30,000 annual salary, he said. A four-year degree will provide an extra $10,000 in annual income, Hale estimated.
An advanced degree will bring home a $65,000 annual salary, and civil engineers who are licensed can make a six-figure salary, he said.
“We’re beyond high school students,” BCTHS junior Dan Quinn, 17, said. “The kids who have already graduated said it has done wonders for them and they already know what they’re doing when they get to college.”
Thursday, May 29, 2008
School Funding Battle
The irony here is that the Emperor and his accomplices could follow through on his school death plan only to find out that action on the school funding formulas could have saved the district from the anguish of being used as a biology classrooom dissection frog.
Here's the email I was sent. Please visit the website and register. There is no cost involved and a copy of your email is sent to:
Governor Edward G. Rendell (D-PA)
Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th)
Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
I have become increasingly concerned about how unfair Pennsylvania's
system of school finance is and how many children are not able to get a
quality education as a result. The wealthiest districts in the state
spend two and a half times as much per student as the poorest, and their
tax rates are actually much lower because they have much healthier tax
bases. As a result, many children in many communities simply don't
have access to the best teachers, modern books and materials, and
up-to-date programs. We really should do better by all of our children, and
I'm sure you agree with me about that. Nothing else the state does is
more important than guaranteeing that our children and grandchildren, no
matter where they live, have access to the best education possible.
Why am I writing to you now about this? I recently heard about and
became a supporter of the Pennsylvania School Funding Campaign, and I would
like you to join me by clicking the link at the bottom of this e-ma
il. It will just take a minute. It will cost you nothing. Your
e-mail address will not be passed on to others. You will receive one
e-mail a week to keep you posted on the Campaign's progress. The children
of Pennsylvania need our help - and it is so easy to give that help.
Thanks.
Click on this URL to take action now
http://capwiz.com/paschoolfunding/utr/2/?a=11216011&i=87477843&c=&u=capwiz.com%2Fpaschoolfunding%2Fmlm%2Fsignup%2F
If your email program does not recognize the URL as a link,
copy the entire URL and paste it into your Web browser.
Here's the email I was sent. Please visit the website and register. There is no cost involved and a copy of your email is sent to:
Governor Edward G. Rendell (D-PA)
Senator Chuck McIlhinney (R-PA 10th)
Representative John T. Galloway (D-PA 140th)
I have become increasingly concerned about how unfair Pennsylvania's
system of school finance is and how many children are not able to get a
quality education as a result. The wealthiest districts in the state
spend two and a half times as much per student as the poorest, and their
tax rates are actually much lower because they have much healthier tax
bases. As a result, many children in many communities simply don't
have access to the best teachers, modern books and materials, and
up-to-date programs. We really should do better by all of our children, and
I'm sure you agree with me about that. Nothing else the state does is
more important than guaranteeing that our children and grandchildren, no
matter where they live, have access to the best education possible.
Why am I writing to you now about this? I recently heard about and
became a supporter of the Pennsylvania School Funding Campaign, and I would
like you to join me by clicking the link at the bottom of this e-ma
il. It will just take a minute. It will cost you nothing. Your
e-mail address will not be passed on to others. You will receive one
e-mail a week to keep you posted on the Campaign's progress. The children
of Pennsylvania need our help - and it is so easy to give that help.
Thanks.
Click on this URL to take action now
http://capwiz.com/paschoolfunding/utr/2/?a=11216011&i=87477843&c=&u=capwiz.com%2Fpaschoolfunding%2Fmlm%2Fsignup%2F
If your email program does not recognize the URL as a link,
copy the entire URL and paste it into your Web browser.
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