Capitolwire: Budget deal restores more to education funding than
House plan.
By Peter L. DeCoursey
Bureau Chief
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (June 23) – While disputes remain over many funding lines, the budget
framework Senate leaders will present to their members Sunday adds about $25 million to the
House budget for K-12 state education funding.
Unresolved still is the funding of the pre-K-12 block grant program, which may end up linked to
changes in other appropriations.
The still-evolving budget framework also trims back the House-proposed funding level for the
State System of Higher Education while restoring more funding to the state-related universities:
Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University and Lincoln
University.
Gov. Tom Corbett proposed funding cuts of 50 percent for all of the universities, more than $600
million. The House budget reduced that to a 15 percent cut for the 14 state system schools and a
25 percent reduction for Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln.
The budget framework moves the state-funded universities to relative party in funding: two
sources said the state system would get 82 percent of the funding they got this year, and the
state-relateds 81 percent of their current funding. But other sources said state system schools
would get 83 percent of current funding, while the state-relateds would get 82 percent.
“It’s right in that range with the state system getting a point more,” one budget negotiator said.
Legislative leaders declined to reveal numbers or spreadsheets.
Their staffs did discuss a tentative schedule: the Senate could pass the budget bill to the House
Monday or Tuesday, with the House passing the fiscal code early in the week. Senate leaders
have indicated they will work to keep a Marcellus Shale fee out of the fiscal code, said Erik
Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware.
And while a separate vote on school vouchers or a Marcellus fee is possible, timing suggests it
may be difficult to raise and resolve those issues, and that of economic furloughs for educators,
by June 30, negotiators and staff said.
“None of that is impossible, but it’s very unlikely we have the time or the will to do those,” said
one legislative leader who would like to pass all three.
Budget negotiators expressed confidence that tort reform would be passed soon in the House and
sent to the governor. The next two most likely bills to be approved in the end-of-budget session
are a bill to allow taxpayers to vote on school property tax hikes above inflation, and a bill to
allow charter schools to bypass district control, and get paid directly by the state department of
education.
Sources said that Gov. Corbett demanded the referendum bill, while Pileggi was pushing for the
charter school bill. The charter school measure would also set up a new state board to regulate
charter schools and charge schools for filing to be chartered, and for appealing decisions on their
status.
On the referendum bill, House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney, said it was unknown how
many exceptions there would be. Now there are more than a dozen. Corbett told legislative
leaders he wanted that cut to none, or just one for special education costs. Leaders said they
thought pension costs would be added to the lists of exemptions.
Smith that was still a matter of discussion, but acknowledged that leaders had agreed to meet that
goal of Corbett’s, to pass a bill on the topic.
Arneson said discussions would continue to see if Corbett would want a bill with sufficient
exceptions that it would pass the Legislature. Corbett said he wanted a bill that would make most
property tax increases go before a local referendum.
A number of spending issues remain unresolved, said negotiators. Senate leaders expect those
issues, including restoring state funding to hospitals, will be resolved by Sunday, when the
Senate will start moving bills to finish the budget by June 30, Arneson said. For more on the
dispute over the hospital funding, CLICK HERE..
Senate Democrats said they knew little of the budget’s details, but Senate Minority Leader Jay
Costa, D-Allegheny, deplored cutting education funding while the state amassed a “big surplus.”
Costa said his caucus revenue analysts believed the revenue surplus would be $675 million by
June 30, since revenues through the first three weeks of the month were strong.
Arneson conceded revenues would rise, saying Senate GOP estimates were in the $625 million
to $650 million range.
But he said some of that would be used to provide funding for this budget.
Costa said that would require only about $170 million of the surplus, and that more of it could
and should be spent “rather than laying off 10,000 teachers and making school districts raise
property taxes.”
Arneson said the deal had been arrived at, and represented what the various parties could agree
upon. Several GOP senators said the Senate GOP had pressed for more spending and using more
of the surplus, but were turned down by House leaders and Corbett.