Local educators relieved about agreement on state subsidy
Frazier School District superintendent Dr. Frederick Smeigh is relieved that the state may soon come through with basic education subsidy, but he said the 2003-2004 school year is all but lost. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t put in any new programs or do anything because we had no idea about funding,” he said. “We’re trying to do what we have to for the No Child Left Behind regulations and working to meet our adequate yearly progress goals, but it’s really been a lost year.”
After an all-night negotiating session, the state Senate early Saturday approved budget bills that would raise the state’s income tax by nearly 10 percent on Jan. 1 and release $4.2 billion in education subsidy to the state’s 501 school districts.
The budget bills will go to the state House, which is expected to approve them Monday.
Gov. Ed Rendell and legislative leaders met last week in an effort to end a stalemate that has dragged on for nearly six months and left school districts without the funding that comprises an average 35 percent of their operating budgets.
The agreement would provide a 2.5 percent increase in the amount of state funding that school districts received in the 2002-2003 school year.
The Senate bills provide $258 million for new education programs. The largest portion of the new money, $175 million, would be set aside for grants that districts could use for Rendell’s early-childhood-education initiatives, such as full-day kindergarten, class-size reduction and preschool, or for other programs to help them improve standardized test scores.
The grants, plus a $15 million expansion of the federal Head Start preschool programs for needy children, would take effect in the next fiscal year because the administration has acknowledged that schools could not immediately implement them. The package also includes $34 million for tutoring programs in the current fiscal year.
Uniontown Area School District superintendent Charles Machesky said the funds for the tutoring program will be an important tool for the district.
He said the funding package contains provisions that would allow school districts to recover interest that was lost because state money could not be invested, or on interest paid on loans or lines of credit taken out by districts to help keep schools open.
Uniontown was able to borrow against its construction fund at a low interest rate, but Machesky said some bills have been held and some vendors have not been paid because of uncertainty about when subsidy would be released.
“It’s great this is happening now. I knew they would come to their senses and settle this,” he said. “I’m excited that we can go on with the tasks at hand.”
Rendell and Senate Republicans broke their stalemate Wednesday night after the administration proposed increasing the cigarette tax by an additional 10 cents per pack in lieu of a larger increase on the income tax. That amount would be in addition to the 25-cent-per-pack increase that has been proposed under separate legislation to help doctors pay for medical-malpractice claims against them.
The deal calls for the income tax to rise from 2.8 percent to 3.07 percent, to raise an additional $700 million a year for new learning programs in public schools, the restoration of social-service cuts that were required to balance the budget in March and to offset a projected deficit. The hike in the income tax is the first since 1991.
Dr. Charles Rembold, Jefferson-Morgan School District superintendent, called the budget proposal a good Christmas present from the state, if it gets to the districts in time.
“This alleviates all of the schools from having to make a decision about closing schools or other procedures,” he said “Closing school interferes with education, and the kids are the priority, but the state seems to forget about that sometimes.”
Contacted in Harrisburg on Friday, state House Democratic Leader H. William DeWeese (D-Waynesburg) said that while the budget is still not finalized, the process is much farther along than it was over the summer.
He said Rendell, the House Democrats and Republicans and Senate Democrats were “poised and ready” to resolve the budget deadlock months ago, but he blamed Senate Republicans for pointing “the equivalent of a loaded gun” at Rendell’s head, which caused the stalemate.
According to DeWeese, the “underpinning dream” that launched Rendell’s successful gubernatorial campaign last year “was education reform, with pre-kindergarten and full-time kindergarten, smaller class sizes in grades one, two and three and a sophisticated and pervasive after-school tutoring program. …These are audacious leaps in the direction of public education opportunities, especially for youngsters in poor districts like ours and in major urban centers.”
DeWeese said each .1 percent increase in the personal income tax equates to another $270 million in revenue for the state.