Wolf: Give schools $200 million more in 2016-17
Gov. Wolf said Tuesday that he will propose boosting funding for public education by $200 million when he unveils his budget next week for the new fiscal year.
Gov. Wolf said Tuesday that he will propose boosting funding for public education by $200 million when he unveils his budget next week for the new fiscal year.
The problem: he and the Republican-controlled legislature have yet to reach agreement on education spending - or even a final budget, for that matter - for this fiscal year.
Speaking at an elementary school in the struggling Reading school district, Wolf, who is to give his budget address to a joint session of the legislature next Tuesday, said education funding remains a top priority for his administration.
"We have a choice in Pennsylvania," the governor said. "We must choose a path that funds our schools, eliminates our deficit, and puts Pennsylvania back on track."
Wolf said the $200 million hike - or 3.3 percent - would be on top of the additional $365 million he and the legislature had agreed to give schools in the fiscal year that began in July 2015.
But that budget deal derailed shortly before Christmas, after Republicans who control the House balked at approving it. The dispute centered on how to pay for the new money for schools; the agreement would have required an increase in either the state sales or personal income tax.
Instead of the agreed-to plan, the legislature ended up sending him a scaled-down spending proposal that would not have raised any broad-based taxes, such as sales, but did include additional dollars for schools - although not close to what Wolf wanted.
Wolf partially vetoed that plan, leaving billions of dollars hanging in the balance. He agreed to release six months worth of emergency funds for schools and more than $9 billion for human services; but used his line-item veto authority to eliminate or reduce other pieces of the proposal.
Since that time, the two sides have held several negotiating sessions, but there is no indication that they are close to breaking the impasse.
Steve Miskin, spokesman for the House Republicans, on Tuesday had two words for the tentative budget deal of last year: "It's dead."
"His administration is still under the illusion that the framework exists," Miskin said of Wolf.
Asked whether his caucus could back the governor's call for an additional $200 million for schools, Miskin said: "How do you add spending on top of something that doesn't even exist? That is part of the problem with this administration, they just keep trying to spend without a sense of reality."
It was not immediately clear Tuesday how Wolf would pay for the $200 million. But if nothing else, the tortured budget process of 2015 has provided evidence that proposals involving tax increases are destined for a protracted fight.
Though welcoming the call for more money, educators fretted about the uncertainty created by the current budget stalemate.
Lawrence A. Feinberg, a member of the Haverford Township School District board and head of a coalition of school officials, noted that districts still do not know how much state aid they will end up with this year.
Without a resolution, he said, the promise of $200 million will mean little.
Jennifer Hoff, school board president in William Penn School District in Delaware County, put it this way: "I'll believe it when I see it."
"I just want it to be over," she said. "We're trying to do good things in this district. But if I'm sitting here on Feb. 2 not sure if I'm going to get my next payment in March or not - and I just got the one that was due to me in November in January. . . How am I supposed to do this?"
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