Burning questions

The city cigarette tax just approved in Harrisburg is a lot better than nothing, which is what the legislature was doing about the Philadelphia schools' funding shortfall until this week. The levy, passed with rare bipartisan support, would discourage an addictive and harmful practice, and it promises to generate as much as $80 million a year for a crucial purpose. For that, the legislature, the governor, city officials, and others who lobbied for the relief deserve an appropriate stand-in for congratulatory cigars (which the commonwealth has yet to tax, by the way).

Under Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., the School District has made substantial efforts to balance the district's finances, sometimes with negligible support or interest from the legislature, City Council, or union leaders. By agreeing to the cigarette tax as well as an extension of a city sales-tax increase - albeit after months of internecine squabbling and pointless delay - lawmakers have produced significant added support for the district.

Moreover, the $2-a-pack tax can be expected to discourage tobacco use in a city with stubbornly high smoking rates. According to a research review by economists at the University of Illinois, Chicago, published by the journal Tobacco Control in 2012, "higher taxes are effective in reducing the death, disease, and economic costs caused by tobacco use," discouraging people from taking up smoking and encouraging smokers to quit.

The study pointed out, however, that such taxes are more effective when they minimize opportunities for evasion, which will be plentiful in the case of a levy that ends at the city line. And to the extent that the tax does succeed in discouraging smoking, its prospects for generating revenue will be limited and even diminished in the long run.

That's just one of the ways in which this answer to the school funding question is fundamentally unserious. Another weakness is that thanks to legislative dallying, the tax can't take effect until the current school year is well underway, which leaves a one-time shortfall yet to be addressed. More importantly, Harrisburg hasn't begun to venture a long-term, comprehensive solution to school funding - one that harnesses reliable revenue sources and takes account of educational needs across Pennsylvania.

Some legislators reportedly objected to the cigarette tax on the grounds that it would not help schools outside Philadelphia. Putting aside the state's unique responsibility for a district that it does in fact run, it's a valid issue. But rather than refuse to pay for education in Philadelphia, the answer is to promote appropriate, consistent school funding statewide.