The ability to educate public school students is increasingly hampered by spiraling mandated costs for pensions, special education and charter and cyber schools, which dwarf the size of modest funding increases anticipated from the state, according to a group of Western Pennsylvania school superintendents.
The heads of 10 diverse districts joined at West Mifflin High School Wednesday to plead their case that the current system of funding basic education in Pennsylvania is unsustainable and that they have already cut services and staffing to the bone. It is up to the state to change subsidy formulas because local taxpayers cannot shoulder the burden through further millage hikes, the superintendents said.
“If immediate systemic action is not taken, I fear the public school buildings in our local area will soon look exactly like the dreary, abandoned steel mills that once were symbols of community growth and hope,” said Dan Castagna, superintendent of the West Mifflin Area School District.
He was joined by peers from the Baldwin-Whitehall, Carlynton, Clairton, McKeesport, Norwin, Plum, Quaker Valley, Upper St. Clair and Yough school districts, and the same type of session for the media was taking place the same day in four other locations in the state. The collective effort was arranged by The Campaign for Fair Education Funding, a coalition of advocacy groups seeking to increase state public school funding.
The 2017-18 state budget plan under discussion in Harrisburg is unlikely to have leeway for significant funding boosts because of ongoing revenue problems. The House has sent to the Senate a budget proposal that contains Gov. Tom Wolf’s requested hike of 1.7 percent in basic education funding and 2.3 percent in special education subsidies.
The superintendents say such increases are quickly swallowed up by what they are required to pay into their pension systems and per-pupil payments for those students attending charter or cyber schools, and they note the state is simultaneously planning to cut transportation subsidies they receive.
“Increases in state subsidies have been minimal and less than adequate to meet normal operating expenses,” said Norwin Superintendent William Kerr.
He and the others outlined a variety of options none of them like, but which districts have already been forced to take in recent years to varying degrees: hiking property taxes, slashing reserve balances, increasing class sizes, cutting teaching and administrative staffs, eliminating support staff for emotionally troubled students, curtailing non-essential classes such as arts and foreign languages.
The superintendents acknowledged it may be unrealistic at this stage to obtain major improvements in the 2017-18 state budget, but said they are hoping state officials take their concerns into account in discussing long-term solutions that could bolster local districts’ finances and ability to serve students.
Gary Rotstein: grotstein@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1255.
Original article: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2017/05/31/Pennsylvania-school-funding-superintendents-districts-budget-cuts-pensions-cyber/stories/201705310219
