Another year scraping together bare essentials
The District needs $200 million just to avoid a new round of cuts for 2014-15. It is unclear where the funds might be found.
by Dale Mezzacappa
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Photo: Harvey Finkle
At a February meeting, parents, teachers and students urged the School Reform Commission to lobby for more funding.
With the new budget season gearing up, the School District is facing another year of instability and scraping together bare essentials while city and state officials argue over how – or , in the case of the state, whether – to provide stable, recurring funding sources.
“It’s dire, dire,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth. “We have 116 nurses, 200 counselors, fewer than 400 art and music teachers [less than one of each per school] for a district with 130,000 kids. This is not an acceptable academic experience.”
As of March, Chief Financial Officer Matthew Stanski could point to only $66 million in additional city and state revenue for fiscal 2015. Officials say they need $200 million simply to maintain this year’s skeletal level of services. Superintendent William Hite would like $240 million beyond that for his reform agenda, but financial support of that magnitude seems improbable.
The District is counting on but hasn’t secured $120 million from an extension of a 1 percent sales tax surcharge authorized by the state but not enacted by the city. Council President Darrell Clarke, with reluctant support from Mayor Nutter, remains