House Republican plan may mean more funding for Pennsylvania schools

HARRISBURG - The curtain on Act II of the state's budget negotiations is about to be drawn. And this part of the drama, at least, may play better with school audiences.

House Republican leaders on Tuesday are expected to offer details of their alternative to Gov. Corbett's $27.3 billion spending plan, which contains steep cuts to public and higher education.

The House GOP proposal would stick to the governor's bottom-line spending figure, but would move substantial sums around within that framework. For instance, it would chop about a half-billion dollars from the Department of Public Welfare and redistribute funds to the 14 state-run colleges and the four state-related universities - Lincoln, Temple, Pennsylvania State, and Pittsburgh - and to K-12 instruction in public schools.

"We are focused on a bill that is fiscally responsible, that does not raise taxes, that does not do any borrowing, and that is on time," said House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny). "This is about prioritized spending . . . and living within our means."

For the Philadelphia School District, the proposal is "very welcome news," chief financial officer Michael Masch said Monday night. "The most important thing is that the legislature is saying what we've been saying, that the cuts in our public schools are too deep."

Philadelphia, which under Corbett's plan would have faced a $629 million budget gap, is proposing cutting full-day kindergarten back to a half-day program.

"It's too soon to tell" if restoring some funding for accountability block grants would mean full-day kindergarten is back in Philadelphia, but "it means that the prospects for restoring the cuts in kindergarten are getting better," Masch said.

As details of the House Republican plan began to surface Monday, Democrats quickly denounced it, saying it would not tap any of the extra money turning up in the state's latest revenue report. The Department of Revenue reported a $506 million surplus as of the end of April, well above the $78 million that Corbett had projected.

House Minority Leader Frank Dermody (D., Allegheny) said Monday that the GOP proposal still contained "egregious" and "draconian" cuts to education, while siphoning funds from social-welfare programs for children and the elderly.

Tapping the surplus revenue, he said, would further ease the pain of those cuts.

"Middle-class families lose," Dermody said. "It's simply not right. . . . It's nothing more than robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Corbett has been clear about not wanting to spend down the current surplus. He has said he would instead consider putting it in reserve or using it to pay down the state's debt.

"This budget hurts," Corbett said at a National Federation of Independent Business event in downtown Harrisburg last Tuesday. "And it's not going to be made a whole lot easier, even if we add that little bit more of money."

The House GOP plan would increase funding for higher education by $380 million over Corbett's budget, with schools in the State System of Higher Education getting roughly an extra $200 million. That means state-related universities such as Temple, Lincoln, and Penn State would get about 75 percent of what they are receiving now.

In the budget he unveiled last month, Corbett proposed eliminating $625 million, or 52 percent, of state aid for the 18 state-supported colleges. Officials from those universities warned that if the governor's budget was adopted as proposed, students can expect tuition increases, faculty and staff layoffs, and program cutbacks.

The House Republican plan would also increase by $210 million state funding for kindergarten-through-12th-grade education. The idea is to have every district receive at least the same state funding it did in the 2008-09 fiscal year - before federal stimulus money kicked in.

The plan would also redirect about $100 million for so-called accountability block grants, which school districts use to fund full-day kindergarten and other programs. Corbett has zeroed out those grants in his budget proposal.

To save money, House Republicans would slice $470 million from the welfare department. In his budget, the governor did not slash funding for many welfare programs. Overall, in fact, he proposed keeping the department's spending roughly the same, at about $11 billion.

House GOP members say the welfare savings would be reaped by attacking waste and fraud, and point to Auditor General Jack Wagner's oft-quoted audits revealing double-digit error rates for eligibility in Pennsylvania's Medicaid program.

If the GOP proposal passes the House, where Republicans are in the majority, it would then be sent to the GOP-controlled Senate.

Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware), said Monday that the outlines of the House proposal indicated "we have many shared priorities, including the goal of restoring funding for K-12 education and higher education."