Wolf proposes major funding changes
Gov. Tom Wolf went bold Wednesday.
The York County Democrat presented his annual budget address — a day late due to a snowstorm and virtually because of the ongoing pandemic — laying out his plan for Pennsylvania. It was not a status quo vision he shared, far from it.
Wolf called for some major changes. Nowhere more so than in the world of public education where he’s asking for a nearly
$1.8 billion increase in spending and some significant policy overhauls.
“High-quality education is the ticket to greater opportunity for our children,” Wolf explained. “Without it, how can we hope that our kids will lead better lives than we did?”
Fair funding
The governor’s 2021-22 budget proposal would increase state funding to school districts across the state by about $1.5 billion. It would also reconfigure how all that money is dolled out, resulting in some districts getting huge influxes of cash.
The reason behind his transformative proposal, Wolf said, is to address the inequities that have plagued education in the state for generations.
“Far too many parents across the commonwealth — in Westmoreland County, in Fulton County, in Tioga County, in North Philadelphia and beyond — felt like the opportunities available to their kids would be determined less by their talent and more by their ZIP code,” he said. “No matter how great a parent you are, if your local school system lacks the resources it needs to provide your kids with a quality education, that’s a barrier to giving them a better life.
“A barrier so big, it actually blocks out the sun.”
To address that problem, Wolf wants to change how the state hands out basic education subsidies, the largest stream of state money provided to local schools districts.
Back in 2016, the state enacted a new fair funding formula in an attempt to level the playing field. It takes into consideration things like the number of economically disadvantaged students in a district and a district’s tax base in calculating who should get what.
The hope was that the new formula would help bolster consistently underfunded districts.
But since its inception the formula has only been used for “new money,” dollars added to basic education funding after 2016. That has meant any leveling has taken place at a snail’s pace.
Wolf’s budget proposal changes that.
He wants to run all basic education funding through the new formula. That would mean some poorer districts would see enormous funding increases.
Other districts would see funding cuts, which Wolf said he will cover with additional state funding to make sure no districts gets less than it is currently receiving.
“Finally, we will be able to fully and fairly fund every school, in every school district, in every part of the commonwealth,” he said. “Putting all this funding through the fair funding formula means that struggling schools will finally get the resources they need without taking away from schools already being adequately funded.”
The move, he said, will not only serve to improve schools across the state, but will also provide relief to taxpayers in school districts that have had to rely on property tax increases to cover funding deficiencies.
Other education moves
Along with a major overhaul of basic education funding, Wolf is also proposing some other moves.
His budget proposal includes a $200 million increase in funding for special education.
The governor said also plans to reform he the state’s charter school system through moves like changing how much charter schools can charge districts for special education students and creating a statewide cybercharter tuition rate. Wolf said his proposal will save districts a big chunk of money.
Wolf also proposed increasing the statewide minimum salary for teachers to $45,000 from $18,500; redirecting $199 million in money currently going to the Horse Racing Development Fund into a scholarship fund for students attending colleges in the state system; and increasing funding for prekindergarten and early learning programs.