Corbett: No Cuts in K-12 Education Funds

Educators, parents, and school districts will be take a close look at the $27.1b budget proposed Tuesday by Republican Governor Tom Corbett. In his second annual budget Corbett says there will be some realigning to block grants to counties and local school districts, but there will be no cuts in state funding for public education.

That may come as a relief, but perhaps only a little practical help to the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District as it begins contract negotiations with members of its teacher union. T/E School Board members have been lobbying hard for relief from Harrisburg. According to Harrisburg Patriot News website most of the governor's proposed three percent increase in school funding would go to help pay the pension costs.

Corbett says his administration is not cutting, and is in fact slightly increasing, the amount of money the state spends on primary and secondary education. Corbett laid the blame for what appeared to be budget cuts in his last budget at the feet of his predecessor (Democratic Governor Ed Rendell) and budgetary "sleight of hand."

Here is the text of the portion of Corbett's budget address dealing with primary and secondary public education financing.

One of our core functions is to provide for education at several levels starting with our youngest. We have less money than I would like, so we must adapt.

Earlier, I mentioned our proposal to use block grants to give counties and school districts the flexibility to adjust to their own, unique needs. That accounts for the transfer of four separate line items in to a single block grant. Right now, education spending is bound up in a thicket of outdated and time-consuming regulations and mandates.

The rationale here is clear. Local districts know better how to spend and allocate resources than do bureaucrats in Harrisburg. We leave the Basic Education Funding formula at its current level. There are no cuts. In fact, you will find a slight increase. Just as we did last year.

There has been some confusion, even deception, about what we did and did not do with the Basic Education formula last year. Some keep insisting we cut Basic Ed. (sic) This urban legend was spread by those who have the most to gain from additional funding at taxpayer expense.

Here is the truth. When the Obama Administration handed states billions of dollars in stimulus monies the previous administration reduced the state’s share in the Basic Education funding formula. In its place, they put the stimulus funds. Almost a billion dollars worth.

These funds were one-time only earmarks by the president. The last thing they were intended for was to pay continuing, yearly, operating costs such as salaries. The term everybody kept hearing was that the stimulus funds were for "shovel- ready" projects.

Instead, by accounting sleight of hand, someone buried our problems under a layer of federal cash. Perhaps they misunderstood the meaning of “shovel ready.” That money is gone. It’s not coming back.

What we did, my administration and the men and women of the General Assembly, was to replace the state’s share of money. In fact, at more than $5.3 billion, last year’s budget was the largest amount the state’s taxpayers have ever put into the Basic Education funding formula. The largest until this year.

So, I want the various special interests out there to understand this: If we are going to debate education funding, let’s use real numbers.

What Harrisburg can do for education is to set standards – both for our schools and our government. At the state level, we need to put things in the proper order when it comes to our priorities: student-family-teacher, in that order.

Education reform is absolutely necessary. I want our public schools to work, to accomplish what we ask of them, and to do it for every student of every background in every part of the state.

Every child can learn. We need to instill that faith in every school in the state. Every school in Pennsylvania should be our best.

Click on the pdf for the full text of Corbett's budget address.