PA. House Republicans Come to the Rescue, With a 0.1% Increase in Public School Funding
Last edited Wed May 29, 2013, 02:37 PM - Edit history (8)
Today, the Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee released their proposed state budget. It would add $10 million in public school funding to the Governor's budget, which is a one tenth of one percent increase. That total amount is a small fraction of deficits faced by many public school districts.
At least they will be able to say in their TV commercials that they increased school funding.
This is in addition to a $90 million increase that Corbett proposed for public schools --- which would be consumed by state-mandated increases in the amounts school districts have to pay for pensions.
The legislature is faced with multiple complex issues that are inter-related in putting together a budget. One piece involves revisions to the pension funding system. If no changes are made this year to the pension laws, there will be a huge hole in the state budget and the budgets of most school districts. The House Republicans have refused to hold any hearings on the pension proposals.
As noted in the article, the Dems in the Legislature are again being shut out of the budget talks.
http://articles.mcall.com/2013-05-28/news/mc-pa-corbett-budget-preview-0528-20130528_1_house-republicans-state-budget-talks-corbett
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Here's the full budget proposal. With the limited amount of time left, this has a good chance of becoming the final budget:
http://www.pabudget.com/Display/SiteFiles/154/2013-14%20HRC%20Budget%20Proposal.pdf
The budget would eliminate the $1.8 million program to assist financially distressed municipalities. College spending would be frozen for a second year, after severe cuts were made. The Legislature gets a cost of living salary increase, and prisons (of course) get more money again.
