State budget boosts local school funding

Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday signed a roughly $40 billion budget package that passed last week, as he touted the importance of new funding for public schools. The hundreds of pages of budget legislation emerged publicly from closed-door negotiations Friday and won approval within hours in the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Pennsylvania’s new budget is a historic one when it comes to education.

The 2021-22 spending plan that was approved by the Legislature last week and signed by Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday hikes funding for education by $416 million, the largest increase in the state’s history.

But while the added dollars are welcome news for school leaders across the commonwealth, they pale in comparison to what Wolf was hoping to get. When he released his budget proposal in February, the governor called for a nearly $1.8 billion increase in education funding and a series of policy changes that would have ushered in systemic change.

Despite his plan not coming to fruition, Wolf applauded the new budget’s handling of education funding and trumpeted the success his administration has had in increasing the flow of dollars to schools during his tenure.

“This budget makes a historic investment in education so our students get the knowledge and skills they deserve,” Wolf said in a statement. “Pennsylvania provides almost $2 billion more a year for education than when I took office. Students now have access to better technology, resources and opportunities, and we are providing more help to distressed school districts.”

Some of the increases for education in the budget include:

• $200 million increase for basic education, the main stream of state dollars for school districts. The money will be doled out through the state’s fair funding formula passed into law in 2016.

• $100 million for Level Up, a new initiative providing additional funding to the 100 most underfunded districts in the state. Reading School District and Antietam School District are the only two districts in Berks to receive Level Up funds.

• $50 million increase for special education.

• $30 million increase for early education, which includes $25 million to expand Pre-K Counts and $5 million to expand Head Start.

Still work to be done

Statewide education groups expressed mixed feelings about the new state budget, with some saying it was a missed opportunity to transform education in Pennsylvania.

“School directors across

Pennsylvania made the case that public schools need additional funding to ensure every student has the chance to succeed,” Nathan Mains, chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania School Board Association, said in a statement. “Legislators listened by providing an historic increase and directing funding to districts most in-need, but there is still work to be done. Investing in the success of our students is key to the prosperity of our commonwealth.”

Mains said that while additional state funding does help local school districts, unfunded mandates that continue to drive up costs are the real culprit behind the financial stress that needs to be addressed.

The American Federation of Teachers expressed discontent with the budget.

“This budget prioritizes all the wrong things: the status quo of inequitable funding for Pennsylvania schools; corporate tax breaks; a wild west of charter school regulation,” Arthur

G. Steinberg, AFT president, said in a statement. “This was an opportunity to fund all schools fully and fairly. This was an opportunity to hold charter schools to the same standards as traditional public schools. This was an opportunity to ensure that our schools do not poison our students and teachers.”

The Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials applauded education funding increases.

“At a time when school districts are finalizing their budgets, these investments will provide much-needed relief as growing mandated costs for charter school tuition, special education and pensions continue to cause fiscal stress and structural deficits, despite the infusion of one-time federal funds,” a statement released by the organization said.

The group says the increased basic education and special education funding will mean districts won’t have to rely as much on local taxpayers.