School superintendents describe bleak funding

Seven Montgomery County school superintendents testified Thursday before Pennsylvania's Basic Education Funding Commission in Collegeville, describing years of declining funds and increasing costs, program and staff cuts, and unpredictable allocations from the state.

"Our financial future is bleak. We cannot continue to increase . . . this burden on the local taxpayer and our local business representatives," Hatboro-Horsham Superintendent Curtis Griffin said, calling the state funding system inequitable and unsustainable.

Griffin conceded that his district, like many others in well-off Montgomery County, is not struggling in the same way as districts such as Philadelphia, where low funding has become an existential threat.

For suburban districts, the larger problem is an overreliance on homeowners to foot the bill for school funding.

State Rep. Mike Vereb (R., Montgomery) said many taxpayers are frustrated that Southeastern Pennsylvania contributes 35 percent of the state's revenue but gets much less in return.

"There's no logical explanation," he said, why some large districts outside Philadelphia get around $10 million a year from the state while a comparatively small Western Pennsylvania district gets $30 million.

Pennsylvania is one of three states that lack a formula for allocating education funds. The 15-member commission convened in June to study potential remedies - no small task, given the spectrum of demographic, geographic, and economic differences across the state's 500 school districts.

For the commission's legislators, hearings outside their districts have offered a window into how the other half lives.

Rep. P. Michael Sturla (D., Lancaster) questioned how the state could standardize funding when, in some areas, parents expect that "the bus stops in front of my house, and I get to stand here in my bunny slippers with my Lexus in the driveway and wave as the kids safely get on the bus. Somebody else, their kids walk a mile and a half through drug-infested neighborhoods, crossing streets that have 20,000 cars on them."

Vereb said it was eye-opening for him last month when the commission visited Cambria County, where some schools serve only 100 to 125 students. "We would see that from down here and say it's ridiculous, but that one school services several hundred square miles," he said.

Rep. Mark Longietti (D., Mercer) said a theme he has heard statewide is that there isn't enough money to go around.

"Are we going to end up with a system where districts say, 'OK, you have shifted the dollars around, but the dollars were inadequate to begin with?' " Longietti asked.

Budget Secretary Charles Zogby, who also sits on the commission, avoided any suggestion of increased funding. "It's always nice to provide more, but at the end of the day you've got to make ends meet," he said.

About 75 people attended the hearing, including a dozen activists protesting that parents and community members would not be allowed to speak. Even without their input, the meeting lasted more than three hours.

The commission has six more hearings planned this year and plans to issue a preliminary report in January. But Vereb, who co-chairs the panel along with Sen. Patrick M. Browne (R., Lehigh), said he expected that would just be the beginning of the panel's work.