Public education advocates: Pa. budget deal has to include school funding plan, or we’ll go back to court

HARRISBURG — Public education advocates who successfully argued in a landmark case that Pennsylvania discriminates between poor and wealthy school districts raised alarm Wednesday that a budget plan being negotiated by lawmakers won’t resolve the state’s school funding woes.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, House Democrats, and Senate Republicans have been working on a final state budget deal, including how much more money to spend to adequately fund Pennsylvania’s public schools, how that money should be allocated, and whether they should include a multi-year commitment to increase funding each year. The budget was due by July 1, and lawmakers have been saying for days they were close to a deal, though no budget bills have been made public yet.

Whether leaders will include a multiyear funding plan — and what numbers they use to calculate the level of poverty in a school district — are the main hang-ups.

Advocates warned Wednesday at a news conference in the state Capitol that if lawmakers don’t implement a seven-year phase-in so districts can plan around a promised long-term stream of income — and ensure the money is equitably distributed — they are willing to go back to court.

Michael Churchill, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Center who represented some of the underfunded school districts in the lawsuit that led a Commonwealth Court judge to rule last year that state education funding is unconstitutional, said the plaintiffs are “very likely” to sue again if the new funding system does not outline a plan to bring the state into constitutional compliance.

Republicans have previously objected to a multiyear plan, because Pennsylvania has to determine its budget annually and lawmakers cannot foresee the state’s economic status seven years out. A spokesperson for Senate Republicans declined to comment Wednesday.

House Democrats already passed a plan last month that includes a seven-year timeline to increase the state’s spending by $5 billion, but it remains unclear whether than plan will clear the Republican-controlled Senate and become part of the final budget package signed by Shapiro.

“Our concern is that there are at least indications that that strong commitment in that legislation, will not be in a final bill,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, a senior attorney with the Public Interest Law Center. “We are trying to understand the position of the governor and others on what this means going forward.”

Urevick-Ackelsberg also took issue with Senate Republicans’ position on how to assess school district poverty levels when distributing funding, saying the method favored by Republicans — using Census estimates, rather than poverty figures school districts report to the state — would shortchange school districts. Public-education advocates say the Republicans’ method would reduce how much additional money the state owes public schools by $700 million.

“If you pretend there’s less poverty in schools, you don’t have to spend as much money on a poverty-based formula,” Urevick-Ackelsberg said, adding that the districts with the highest concentrations of children in poverty would lose out.

In an interview with reporters last week, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) said “one of the biggest areas of difference” between House and Senate lawmakers was “not only spending on education, but how those dollars get driven to school districts.” He said using Census figures was “a critical piece to making sure that the dollars are driven out in an accurate manner.”

Pittman also said Republicans were focused on “making sure that whatever the ultimate spending number is” for education “does not put us in a multi year fiscal predicament.”

But Urevick-Ackelsberg said school districts that have been chronically underfunded need to be able to plan on adequate funding in the coming years in order to make needed investments. If “firm language” for a multiyear funding plan isn’t part of the budget deal, he said, it would be meaningful if Shapiro “gives his word that he will veto any appropriation going forward without sufficient funds to get us to the adequacy target.”

A spokesperson for Shapiro declined to comment.

Jennifer Hoff, a school board director at William Penn School District in Delaware County, which was one of the primary plaintiffs in the school funding case, said Wednesday that the underfunded district has never been able to count on state funding well enough to implement a long-term plan since its founding in the 1970s.

“Please don’t turn your backs,” she added. “Adopt a long-term plan and a timeline to provide the educational opportunities that all of our children need and are legally entitled to receive.”