Corbett Lays Egg on Education Funding

On February 4, Governor Tom Corbett gave his annual budget address to a joint session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, where he proposed a state spending plan for the coming fiscal year. As I sat at my desk in the House Chamber and listened, I tried to come up with a simple analogy for what the governor’s approach was for this election-year budget. Here’s what I came up with.

Imagine someone stealing a dozen eggs from the supermarket. Now imagine that when questioned about the missing eggs, he returns one egg and wants for credit for it, hoping nobody remembers the eleven eggs still missing.

That’s what Governor Corbett is trying to do with this budget proposal. After three years of stealing eggs by cutting critical programs people really depend on, he’s going to put a little bit of money back into them and hope nobody notices he’s the reason they are so underfunded to begin with.

A perfect example is education funding. One of the most ridiculous lines heard in Harrisburg is the Corbett Administration’s claim of spending “more money on basic education than ever before.” It’s one of those political tricks that may not be technically wrong, but is downright misleading. Even if you don’t have children or grandchildren in school, this matters to you personally. Here’s why.

We fund schools in Pennsylvania through basic education funding in the budget. Money goes from the state to the local school districts, with the rest being funded by local property taxes. Governor Corbett’s first state budget tossed out the formula used to make sure the school districts that need funding the most, particularly small rural districts, actually get the money. He replaced that funding formula, which had been the result of bipartisan cooperation, with a new formula that allows money to be moved to school districts based purely on politics instead of policy.

Under this new funding formula, they proceeded to move a bunch of education-related programs into the basic education fund, even though they had always been separate and independent before. And now, after adding a little more money to basic education funding, Governor Corbett claims to be spending more on basic education than ever before. Unfortunately, this is no more than an accounting gimmick designed to facilitate a political talking point to make people think we’re spending more on education when we’re actually spending hundreds of millions less each year.

So what does this reduced funding mean for our local schools? It means overcrowded classrooms, fewer programs for children,pay-to-play extracurricular activities, and higher local property taxes. Local schools have been forced to raise property taxes year after year because instead of funding public education properly, the Corbett Administration has given over $1 billion in tax breaks to large corporations. We’re all making up that money by paying higher property taxes, and our students certainly aren’t better off than they were four years ago when Tom Corbett took office.

It’s important to remember that how the state spends our tax dollars is a huge part of this equation. Priorities matter. Good priorities and smart investments can save taxpayer dollars. Bad priorities can do the exact opposite, creating serious holes in important areas of public policy while costing the taxpayers more money.

Despite the fancy rhetoric and claims to the contrary, these policies have failed to adequately fund our schools or keep our property taxes from increasing. No matter how he tries to hide it, Governor Corbett is presenting you with an egg while hoping you don’t ask where all the other eggs have gone.