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1/13/2016 9:12 am  #1


Unfinished business on state budget

Joel Sears is a past member of the York Suburban School Board, President of the  York County Taxpayers Council
and a Republican Committeeman.


 Unfinished business on state budget

http://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/01/11/unfinished-business-state-budget/78635820/

Joel Sears, Guest Writer

It’s way past time for the governor and the General Assembly to end the posturing and bickering. After reading four editorials in Viewpoints, I didn’t know where to begin, so here goes. Among the statements made by the governor is this gem: “The budget they (the Republicans) concocted doesn’t have enough revenue to leave any room for doing anything to increase funding for our state universities over 2014-15 levels.” Contrast this with the figures, in millions of dollars, from the General Fund Tracking Run (the actual budget document with the governor’s changes) and tell me what to believe: 


  • 2014-15 actual: $521.2 million
  • 2015-16 “framework”: $548.6 million
  • 2015-16 HB 1043 (as passed): $548.6 million

Unless I missed something, a $27 million increase was offered by both the Senate (framework) and the House (HB 1043). Gov. Wolf created the “room for funding” our four state-supported private schools (Penn State, Pitt, Temple, and Lincoln) by vetoing more than half of the basic education subsidy ($3 billion), leaving our public schools with no state or federal funding for the last six months of their school years.

Our governor has chosen to use Pennsylvania’s children once again to put pressure on the Legislature to accept his call for “investments in education” even though neither the he nor the Pennsylvania Department of Education can tell us (1) how much it should cost to educate our children or (2) how to measure the return on this ever-increasing expense.

Gov. Wolf leaves parents on pins and needles once again, hoping that schools won’t close and force them to find daycare for their children. Pennsylvania currently ranks 10th in education spending per student at just over $14,000 per year, yet we constantly hear from the governor (and most recently, his wife) that schools throughout the commonwealth “simply don't have the resources they need to succeed.” What specific resources are these?

Which schools actually need additional help?Maybe Mrs. Wolf didn’t have time to visit most of the schools here in York County. She certainly can’t be talking about Lower Merion, where the expenditures are north of $35,000 per student, or Mt. Pocono, where the school board, in a severely depressed region with some of the highest school taxes in the state, just authorized the administration to “invest” $3 million for new turf fields at both district high schools.

The governor is correct when he says we need steady streams of revenue instead of one-time fixes. Structural deficits are serious at any level of government. However, he also needs to consider reducing expenses to fit the “steady streams” already available – at least $29 billion if, as he puts it, the House budget uses somewhere between $600 million and $1.2 billion worth of “smoke and mirrors” to get us through the year.He also needs to acknowledge and lead the charge to mitigate the severe impact of pension costs on school budgets. Regardless of district, for every dollar of salary paid this year, districts will pay 26 cents into the pension fund. Starting next year, the contribution increases to 30 cents and stays there for at least 15 years. For a medium-sized district with 3,000 students and payroll near $30 million, this year’s pension cost is a staggering $7.8 million, enough to pay at least 75-80 full-time teachers at any district in York County.

If district contributions were roughly the same as the teachers’ contributions (6-7 percent), billions of dollars would be freed up for classrooms without raising taxes by one cent.This can only be achieved by putting the responsibility for these outrageous pension payments where it belongs – in Harrisburg where the enabling legislation originated. Elected officials need to bite the bullet: either find the revenue to take school districts off the hook for their mistake and/or renegotiate the pension plans, including their own. To use the governor’s words, no more “smoke and mirrors” disguised as pension reform.After more than six months, we still don’t have a budget.

It’s way past time for the governor and the General Assembly to end the posturing and bickering: negotiate a budget that responds to the economic realities of our commonwealth. Fix the pension problem, eliminate school taxes, and put personal and business tax policies in place that resonate beyond our borders to stimulate real, lasting growth.

Joel Sears is president of the York County Taxpayers Council.
 


 “We hold these truths to be self-evident,”  former vice president Biden said during a campaign event in Texas on Monday. "All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”

 
 

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