Susan Spicka, Advocacy Coordinator for Education Voters of PA, issued the following statement regarding Governor Wolf’s budget address:

Budgets are about priorities. We are very encouraged that making progress on fixing Pennsylvania’s inequitable and inadequate state funding system remains a top priority for Governor Wolf.

It is time for lawmakers to put the painful budget impasse debacle behind them and pass a complete and responsible compromise budget for 2015-2016. This budget must support our children, contain new recurring revenue, and invest an additional $377 million in Basic Education Funding. We also need lawmakers to continue to invest in our children by supporting the proposed $200 million increase in the 2016-2017 budget. These investments are essential and will help make sure all of Pennsylvania’s children will have an opportunity to get the quality education they both need and deserve.

We also support the commonsense proposals in the budget to permanently eliminate the charter school pension double-dip and to apply the special education funding formula to all schools, charter and traditional alike. Both of these are vital steps toward developing a state system for funding schools that is rational and fair.

The news Governor Wolf delivered today about the structural deficit facing our state is sobering. Without adequate revenue in the budget, Pennsylvania will not move forward and thrive, but instead will continue to limp along.

The core responsibility of our state government is to make certain that there is sufficient revenue to support strong communities in every corner of the state. This includes making sure that there is enough state funding to ensure that all children in the Commonwealth have a chance to get a decent education so that they can live productive lives after they graduate.

We elect lawmakers to find solutions to problems and to do the difficult job of governing. Lawmakers who fail or refuse to find a way to pay for the state’s obligations, and instead choose to leave the Commonwealth and our schools in a state of fiscal precariousness are, very simply, shirking their duties.

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Education Voters of Pennsylvania is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that is dedicated to supporting policies that support great public schools in every community. For more information, please visit www.educationvoterspa.org