Governor Rendell's budget message released yesterday is very interesting. He addresses many things with regards to his education plans and his efforts to reduce costs in education and the resulting tax impacts on residents. One of his suggestions is to reduce the number of school districts in the state:
Almost everyone agrees that Pennsylvania has far too many school districts. This means there is an ever-increasing pressure to raise local property taxes. I propose to address this pressing issue in three ways: First, there is no question that the best way to relieve the pressure of local property taxes is to continue to demand accountability and grow state funding for public education. In the last six years, working together, we have made tremendous strides in this regard, committing more than $2.7 billion in additional state funding to our public schools. Prior to the market collapse, I had anticipated proposing an additional $418 million for our public schools in FY2009-2010, so that we could continue to achieve the goal of closing the "adequacy gap" in education funding set forth in the Costing-Out Study that was prepared for the General Assembly last year.
Secondly, last session, the House Education Committee passed terrific legislation which would consolidate health care benefits for all school employees in the state. I am a strong proponent of moving in this direction because this bill will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and dramatically slow the rise in annual health care costs. I urge the chambers to act quickly to pass a bill that accomplishes this goal.
In the final part of his proposal, Governor Rendell more fully addresses the possibility of school district consolidation:
Third, full-scale school consolidation provides a very effective way to relieve the local property tax burden all across Pennsylvania. There is nothing sacrosanct about the need to maintain 500 separate schools districts across the state -- each with its own staggering, and growing, administrative costs. In Maryland, for example, they have just 24 districts, all at the county level, and Maryland enjoys student achievement levels that are among the highest in the nation. And for the record, consolidation is not a new idea in Pennsylvania. Consider that in 1955, there were 2,700 separate school districts. At that point, the Legislature authorized consolidations statewide, and within two years the number of separate districts fell to 1,900. Five years later, in 1962, the number of separate school districts fell to 600, and as of July there will be 500 school districts statewide.
We just don't need that many school districts, and more importantly, in today's economy we cannot afford them. Let's be clear: We all agree that small schools are important, but reducing the number of districts doesn't automatically mean bigger schools. Fewer districts does mean that we can spread the local share of public education costs across a wider population, and that means reducing the pressure on local property taxes. For this reason, I am proposing in the FY2009-2010 budget that we establish funds for the creation of a legislative commission to study how best to right-size our local school districts. I ask that you charge this commission with the responsibility of reporting back, within one year, a set of recommendations for the Legislature's approval that sets forth an optimal number of local districts and a plan with specific timelines for adjusting our boundaries to meet the optimal size.
The meat of this plan really is in his conclusion statement where he says he wants to consolidate to no more than 100 school districts so that administrative costs are shared over a larger student population:
I challenge this commission to develop a plan that includes no more than 100 local districts statewide. We need to stop spending our taxpayers' funds on redundant administrative costs and put those funds in the classrooms where they truly belong. If we can succeed in right-sizing our school districts, we can generate a major new source of funding that will benefit our students and Pennsylvania taxpayers all across the Commonwealth.
This theme of consolidation is nothing new. He proposes consolidating health insurance and school districts today. However, it was only a few years ago when tax collectors were consolidated as well.
While this school consolidation is all very interesting, it is a long ways from being definite. I suspect there will be a number of individuals and groups that come out against the consolidation of school districts and that these groups will pressure local representatives in the state house and senate. If I hear any additional chatter I will update everyone.
What I find very interesting is that I see no talk of the Graduate Competency Assessments. If the Governor is so concerned about funding schools then I would suggest the GCA plan be taken off the table immediately.
Thanks for reading.
James
