Time to ‘ reassess’ education funding

A Delco judge has the right idea: Maybe it’s time for Pennsylvania to ‘ reassess’ the way it funds education.

Maybe the Pennsylvania Legislature should trying taking a page from Delaware County Judge Charles Burr.

This week the Delco jurist ordered every property in the county reassessed. Our representatives in Harrisburg would do well to note the reason why.

Judge Burr referenced what is known as the “uniformity clause” of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

It’s pretty simple, really. The clause mandates that all taxes shall be “uniform, upon the same class of subjects, with the territorial limits of the taxing authority.”

Several county residents filed a challenge in court arguing that was not the case, that their homes, which were new construction, were being taxed at a rate far great than older, established homes.

The judge agreed. Thus the county will now commence the mammoth prospect of reassessing the value of more than 200,000 properties.

Now imagine if our state Legislature would apply the same logic to the way this state doles out funding for education.

For years many students in southeastern Pennsylvania have been penalized, saddled with a lesser education, for no reason other than their zip code.

Education funding in the Keystone State has long been anything but “uniform.”

In fact, the system in place, largely dependent on property taxes, creates an unequal system of “haves” vs. the “havenots.”

Districts with a thriving economy and solid tax base have the ability to raise much more revenue than areas where the economy remains in tatters. In those areas, the yolk of property taxes falls largely on home owners.

But the bottom line is that a property tax hike in struggling towns like Pottstown and Norristown simply does not raise the same revenue as a similar levy in a prosperous district.

The result? An uneven playing field, where kids in poor districts are behind the eightball before they ever enter the classroom, where “less” is the key word.

They get less of everything – supplies, teachers, materials, you name it.

A few years back, the Legislature empaneled a group to come up with a better funding system, actually looking to make the system more fair, if not exactly “uniform.” The result?

The panel decided that in order to be fair, if not “uniform,” those struggling districts should actually get more funding to level the education playing field.

A panel took into consideration a number of factors, including the local economy, charter schools, number of children with learning disabilities, the number of languages spoken in the district and others.

The problem is that just a fewyears after it was put in place, the plan was dropped. See if you can guess why? Yep, too expensive.

Then came Gov. Tom Wolf, who ran for office in large part on a promise to fix this system and provide a massive boost in education funding.

That didn’t happen, mostly because Republicans in the state Legislature would not pass any of the taxes Wolf sought to fund his increases.

In his most recent budget proposal rolled out in February, Wolf is not even talking about large- scale tax hikes any more.

He wants a modest increase in education spending, but he’ll fund it from other sources, as opposed to his ill- fated plan to increase the state sales and personal income taxes.

A tax on Marcellus Shale operations in the state? We’re not holding our breath waiting for it to be put in place.

In the meantime, school districts get by, more or less. Some have more; some have less.

It’s high time for the state Legislature to “reassess” this shabby excuse for what the state Constitution demands:

An adequate education for all students, regardless of where they live.

A property taxhike in struggling towns like Pottstown and Norristown simply does not raise the same revenue as a similar levy in a prosperous district.