Huge Hole Remains in Philadelphia School Budget; Legislature Goes Home without Addressing Crisis
What happened yesterday in Philadelphia is not a sudden development; neither is it a surprise. It is merely one more chapter in a tragedy that continues to unfold. Earlier in the summer when the Pennsylvania state legislature passed a budget, leaders of both houses promised to add enabling legislation for Philadelphia to levy a local $2-per-pack cigarette tax to generate $81 million to close an enormous gap in the school district’s budget for the school year set to begin on September 8, 2014, just a month from now. The legislature dithered; House and Senate passed separate bills to enable the local cigarette tax; and then—just last week—the legislature went home for its August break without reconciling the bills. Law makers are not scheduled to return to Harrisburg until mid-September.
Yesterday, Governor Tom Corbett, no friend to Philadelphia’s schools, arrived in Philadelphia with a promise to advance the School District of Philadelphia $265 million. This is not extra money; it is merely an early payment of funds the district would receive anyway from the state later in the school year. Corbett proposed the cash advance as a way to permit school to open and to alleviate the need for the school district to borrow, thereby saving the district $4 – $5 million in borrowing costs.
Superintendent William Hite (who reports to the School Reform Commission that is appointed by the state, as Philadelphia schools are under state control) is understandably reluctant to open school with a gaping hole in the district’s budget until he knows the cigarette tax has received state approval. And even members of the state appointed School Reform Commission earlier this summer stood with Hite and against Corbett to advocate for the rights and safety of the children. (Of course even if Philadelphia gets the right to levy the cigarette tax, there is Huge Hole Remains in Philadelphia School Budget; Legislature Goes Home without Addressing Crisis | janresseger: