Wolf and Rapp differ on school Fair Funding
Trending
The education proposal could be about fair funding, a change that would have negative impacts locally, tax increases, or implicitly racist policy… depends who is talking.
On Thursday, Gov. Tom Wolf held a briefing to talk about his education proposal - part of the budget proposal he announced on Wednesday.
"My legislative plan is about removing barriers," Wolf said. "That's why fully and fairly funding every public school in the state is the cornerstone of my plan. Chronic under-funding has deprived many of our districts of the funding that they need."
Warren County School District is not one of those districts. The governor said it is districts in areas of population growth that have been traditionally left behind in terms of funding.
Rep. Chris Rabb (D-200), who spoke during Wolf's briefing, said the current education subsidy is unjust. "We still live in educational Apartheid in our state," Rabb said. "The single most influential factor to determine if a student is going to get the fullest amount of money the state provides is whiteness. What you put forth is a bold vision for public education."
The governor said there has long been a Fair Funding Formula for the state's Basic Education Subsidy.
"The Fair Funding Formula… was a bipartisan achievement," he said. "It only works if it's fully enacted. Only 11 percent of school funding goes through the Fair Funding Formula."
"The Pennsylvania school funding system is structurally unfair," Wolf said. "I'm proposing that we run all current state basic education funding through the Fair Funding Formula."
That would be bad news for Warren County School District.
But, the governor also proposed enough of an increased in the total funding to "make sure districts with shrinking enrollment will be protected from a cut. Every school district will be held harmless. No district will lose a single dollar" in basic education subsidy under the proposal.
In order to manage Fair Funding and Hold Harmless in the same year, the governor's education budget reflects a significant increase.
"I'm proposing a $1.3 billion investment in education," he said.
Increased funding for education would be generated through increases to personal income taxes on wealthier Pennsylvanians, he said, while families who are just getting started would pay less.
"Under the tax program I put into place… this is a reduction in taxes for 40 percent of taxpayers," Wolf said. "For 27 percent, no change at all. Increases are for 33 percent of Pennsylvanians - to 4.49 percent. For that, you get a commonwealth with a school system that is finally fully funded."
Any tax increase this year is too much, according to many Republicans in the state legislature, including Rep. Kathy Rapp (R-65).
"This is the worst time ever that people should be facing a tax increase," Rapp said. "I highly doubt that we would pass a budget with the governor's tax increases. I would not vote for that. The Republican Caucus will not support that."
"We have a high number of small business closures," she said. "To say that we're going to tax people that have lost everything… this is not the time to tax people in Pennsylvania."
"I will not be supporting the taxes the governor has proposed," Rapp said. "We will be developing our own budget."