As of now, there is little to no movement to finally enact a real budget for FY 2016, even as we are on the verge of opening the discussion for the new budget cycle. Sigh.

What we know

In December, legislative leadership decided to jam through its own budget, abandoning the compromise framework that had been negotiated, choosing partisan politics over solutions for Pennsylvania.

Thus, we have a partial budget. The good thing is that some state funding is flowing to school districts (for now).  It solves the immediate problem of cash flow, but does nothing to address the bigger picture of making sure our schools have the necessary resources and that the state share of education funding is fair and adequate, and that we are making annual progress toward a responsible education funding system.

Note: There were a handful of legislators who tried to support a middle-ground and find a path forward. They deserve to be thanked – we are sending a note to them. If your legislator is one of them, you’ll get a note from us in the next 24 hours, asking you to send a thank you note. You may not agree with all that they do, but it is important to let them know we are watching and willing to acknowledge their efforts to find a solution for PA’s children. Your note will help them know that people at home are paying attention to good things too. 

The “partial” budget continues to shift the cost of paying for schools to the local level. The proposed 1.8% increase in Basic Education Funding will be swallowed up by increases in state-mandated costs (pension and charter  and cyber charter school tuition payments) and still leave many school districts facing a deficit.  If this budget becomes law, for the seventh year in a row, a majority of PA school districts will need to raise local taxes simply to pay for state-mandated costs, and school districts throughout the state will be forced, once again, to cut programs and staff from our public schools.

You can read reactions from State College, to Lancaster, to Pittsburgh.  These all demonstrate that the public isn’t happy about another budget that fails to fairly and adequately fund schools.

What’s next?

2016 is an election year and, unfortunately, it appears that politics may be taking precedence over passing a responsible budget that funds education.  Some watchers are wondering if lawmakers will wait until they know what the State House and Senate races will look like before they are willing to take real action on the budget. House and Senate candidate must file their nominating petitions by February 16th.  We are guessing that we won’t see any big movement on the budget before that date.

The School Code is still a very big problem

We are troubled that the School Code provides language that could limit any community’s ability to place reasonable enrollment limits in their contracts with charter vendors and makes substantial changes to the charter school appeals board.  We also continue to be deeply troubled that the School Code contains what is essentially a state takeover and charter school conversion model for Philadelphia, as neither strategy has a proven record for increasing student achievement. Read our comments and our recently-published op-ed about this issue.