Offset school taxes
During the three month trial, some of the testimony was jarring, 75 kindergarteners shared one toilet in the Panther Valley School District.
After the trial and a year’s worth of deliberation concluded this past February, Republican Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer of the Commonwealth Court declared our current system of funding public schools to be “unconstitutional.” Considering the heavy reliance on local property taxes, Judge Jubelirer noted, “Students who reside in school districts with low property values and incomes are deprived of the same opportunities and resources as students who reside in school districts with high property values and incomes.”
In other words, the kids in the richer districts had a better education than kids in the poorer districts. But she wasn’t just speaking of urban school districts like that of Philadelphia, for this lawsuit had been filed in 2014 by six Pennsylvania school districts: William Penn, Greater Johnstown, Lancaster, Panther Valley, Shenandoah Valley, and Wilkes-Barre Area, as well as the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (of which all Adams County public school districts are members), the NAACP-PA State Conference, and a group of public school parents.
Ask any retiree on a fixed income how much they enjoy paying more in property taxes to fund public education and you’ll hear their painful reality. From the rising costs of medications, to the increases in county and municipal property taxes, to the recent price gouge of eggs, living on a fixed retirement income is a constant juggle of meeting some needs and forgoing others. And yet, every year school districts across the commonwealth must create and approve a budget for the next school year, often raising the millage on property taxes to meet educational needs like those of security, a reading specialist, math interventionists, etc.
This year, for example, Conewago Valley School District estimates that for every $100K of assessed property, the increase in property tax, should the full index be approved, would be $81.67. While hardly anyone would disagree that schools need to be more secure, especially in the face of recent school shootings, or that students emerging from the pandemic need more reading and math support, paying increased property taxes is difficult.
Since unconstitutionality cannot possibly continue, public education must be better funded, and increased state funding is how it can happen. Therefore, Pennsylvania retirees are in the unique and powerful position to demand legislation that impacts others far more than would impact themselves. By increasing income taxes, sales taxes, and business-related taxes to “Level Up” (the specific term used for this funding) those students who currently suffer an unequal access to educational resources, the needed public school funding would not be so much on the backs of the property owners on a fixed retirement, but spread among a vast number of working adults, including renters and business owners. In fact, many of those working adults, renters, and business owners are exactly the people who enroll students in the school districts to begin with.
By calling on our legislators, Pennsylvania retirees not only help themselves, but recoup state funding that has been eroded by our General Assembly since 2011. If all public Adams County school districts were to receive adequate state funding, including an increase of Level Up funding to basic education, Conewago Valley School District would receive $15.5M, Bermudian Springs School District would receive $8.1M, Littlestown Area School District would receive $5M, Upper Adams School District would receive $9.2M, and Gettysburg Area School District would receive $4.8M, per year. (Since Fairfield Area School District is considered “adequately funded” for basic education funding, it is not included, but all Adams County public school districts are considered “inadequately funded” for Special Education. Additionally, Pennsylvania needs to lift its moratorium on new public school facilities construction funding, called PlanCon. However, those topics are op-eds for another time.) You can find this information on handy fact sheets about your school district, as well as which school districts State Senator Douglas Mastriano, and State Representatives Dan Moul and Torren Ecker represent, by scrolling to the bottom of this page: https://paschoolswork.org/school-district-data/
And if we can convince our legislators to increase Level Up funding before they approve the state budget at the end of June, even better. Advocacy days by Zoom or in Harrisburg are sponsored by several education groups around the state, including the one linked above which made the handy fact sheets, so you don’t have to go it alone. What kind of difference can proper Level Up funding make? Ask the property owners in the Allentown School District who, for the first time in five years, are budgeted with no new school taxes.
Or do nothing, and flush away an opportunity to save money.
Beth Farnham is a guest writer for the DFA Education Task Force. She is a stay-at-home parent in Conewago Township where she lives with her husband, their two children, their dog, and their cat, but no more goldfish.