The system needs reform but don’t drop property tax

Almost every Pennsylvania resident agrees that the school property tax system needs to be changed. As Zahava Stadler of EdBuild, a nonprofit focused on education inequity and school funding, put it, “Pennsylvania is the Wild West of local school taxes.”

The system is seen as inequitable and punitive for fixed income seniors as well as for younger, lower income families.

What is to be done? If the purpose of public education is to provide every child with the opportunity to learn, then funding for public schools must be raised fairly and equitably. If SB 76 passes, personal income taxes will increase 61% and the Pennsylvania sales and use tax will increase 17%. While this sounds like an easy fix, property taxes are more stable and predictable than sales and income taxes. The latter are far more volatile, depending upon the performance of our state and national economy.

Recessions usually cause sales and income taxes to drop precipitously. Then what? What will happen when the next recession hits? Who will have the guts to raise taxes for school funding then? Let me hazard a guess: no one.

Does the system need to be reformed? Yes.

I support alternative approaches, such as school district consolidation, reductions in the millions of dollars spent on standardized testing, which adds little value to the education of our children, significant charter school funding reform, and levying a reasonable severance tax on the Marcellus Shale natural gas industry in Pennsylvania.