$1.1 Million is a Start, but East Penn is Still $8 Million Short

East Penn is going to receive $1.1 million in additional funding from the state budget that was finally passed. This is good news, and long overdue. It won’t change our schools’ overall budget situation dramatically, but will nonetheless help take some of the strain off the district’s services and some of the pressure off local taxpayers to make up for state underfunding.

The fact is, state support for our schools remains terrible. Pennsylvania ranks near the bottom-- 42nd out of 50-- in the proportion of school costs paid by the state. When Harrisburg underfunds our schools, they aren’t saving money-- they are just passing the bill on to local East Penn taxpayers who are forced to pay more than their fair share. The situation is so bad, in fact, that the courts have found that state state lawmakers haven’t even met the basic obligation to provide “support of a thorough and efficient system of public education” required of the state constitution.

East Penn receives millions less from the state each year than what a bi-partisan commission calculated would be “adequate” state funding. This happens while the district’s state-mandated costs are exploding:

• Cyber Charter Costs: Up over 128% in just the last seven years, with millions of local tax dollars now being diverted to these ‘virtual’ schools that consistently underperform East Penn schools..

• Special Education Costs: Up over 65%, with almost one in five students now requiring services

• Economic Need: One out of every three students now comes from a home that is struggling economically.

The good news is that the Shapiro administration has made some progress in addressing the adequacy gap in state funding. For East Penn, about 10% of that gap was closed last year, and this year’s recent budget will close another 10%. And so now Pennsylvania’s state support of schools is only 42nd in the nation, when we were 45th just a few years ago. This year’s state budget also includes some reforms to the state’s charter school law, considered by critics and supporters of charter schools alike to be one of the worst in the nation. Local school districts like East Penn will no longer be required to pay cyber charter schools for some of the “expenses” they don’t actually have, such as for tax assessments and physical classrooms. These are all welcome changes that will meaningfully help both our kids and taxpayers in East Penn.

But they are also baby steps. Based on our population and level of need, East Penn should be receiving about $8 million more each year from the state than it does even with the new budget…just to provide “adequate” education. Fair funding from the state would translate into dozens more teachers in our classrooms. Or much expanded vocational opportunities. Or school tax cuts rather than tax hikes in the coming years.

Many people quickly tune out or click away when they see phrases like “school funding formulas.” But understanding even a little about state funding helps explain why it’s so difficult for East Penn to make ends meet in today’s world of rapidly rising costs and ever-increasing new burdens required by the state. It clarifies an important way our local administration and school board are playing with a hand of cards that has been stacked against them.

Here are several other short articles about what impacts the East Penn budget

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