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Penn Policy Center Statement on PA Budget Passage

By Press Release, Press Statement

July 5, 2023

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kirstin Snow, snow@pennpolicy.org

Penn Policy Center Statement on Budget Passage

Governor Shapiro’s letter announcing that he would line-item veto the appropriation for vouchers in the budget passed by the Senate last week clears the way for the House to also pass the budget and send it to the Governor for his signature.

Enacting a budget that doesn’t include a voucher plan is a victory, especially because that plan would have likely been a first step toward the destruction of public education in Pennsylvania. We are grateful to Democrats in both the House and the Senate for standing strong against vouchers.

Sadly, while the enacted budget is likely the best that can be achieved at this date, it is not a good one. While it includes bout a 5% increase in total spending, after taking inflation into account, the increase is not substantial. If not for what House Majority Leader Matt Bradford aptly called the “distraction” of the voucher issue, Governor Shapiro could and should have worked more closely with the Democrats in the legislature to reach an agreement with Senate Republicans on a better budget, one closer to the budget passed by the House a month ago. Such a budget would have:

  • provided the additional funding for basic education, special education, the Level Up program, and the remediation of toxic schools needed to meet the requirement of the Commonwealth Court decision on school funding.
  • invested more than an additional $50 million in the Whole-Home Repairs program.
  • provided more funding for subsidized child care and pre-K education.
  • excluded a cut in funds for gun violence prevention, at a time when those programs have had some positive impact in cities around the state.
  • included a long overdue increase in the minimum wage in our state.

And at this point, the General Assembly has not passed funding for Temple, Pitt, and Penn State, which means that in-state tuitions at those institutions, which is already among the highest in the country, will skyrocket.

These and many other needed public investments in higher education, —which we will detail in a more complete review of the budget in a few weeks—could have been paid for by the accumulated $13 billion surplus without raising taxes on Pennsylvanians.

So while avoiding the worst outcome, this budget fails to deliver all that Pennsylvanians need from our state government.  Democrats in the General Assembly and the House Democratic leadership did step forward this year and enacted a far better budget than we have seen in many years. But they didn’t get the help they needed from the governor to get their plans enacted against the opposition of Senate Republicans.

 

The Pennsylvania Policy Center creates the tools that political officials, opinion leaders, grassroots organizations, and the people of PA need to expand our vibrant democracy, secure our freedom, and seek economic justice in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Policy Center

 

July 5, 2023

Saving Public Education in Pennsylvania, Where It Began

By Blog Post, Op-Ed

Originally published on PennCapital-Star.com

The budget stalemate in Harrisburg hasn’t been primarily about whether some budget line items go up or down by a few hundred million dollars. Those kinds of disputes are easy to resolve. Rather, it’s been about whether Pennsylvania will start down a radical, extremist path that leads to the destruction of public education in our state.

As we celebrate the birth of our country, we should remember that public education is central to the ideals that led to, and grew out of, American independence. And we in Pennsylvania should resolve not to compromise those ideals as the state passes its budget this year.

The American Revolution was not just a political revolution against the King and Parliament. It was also a social revolution against the hierarchal society they represented, a society in which everyone knew and kept in their place. It was a revolution to give all white men, no matter whether they started out poor or rich, real freedom and an opportunity to better themselves—and, in doing so, contribute to the well-being of the whole country. Over the following 200-plus years, we have expanded their vision and still seek freedom and opportunity for all people, no matter what they look like, no matter their gender, and no matter who they love.

Creating opportunity for all does not just mean tearing down the barriers of aristocracy. Founders like Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams realized that unless access to a good education was available to all, opportunity would be limited to only a few.

They also realized two other things. First, the future of the country required our citizens to have a civic education centered around American ideals. And second, the rapidly growing economy in the early 19th century needed workers who would only get the necessary education if it were publicly provided.

Cities, towns, and villages provided free public education as early as 1639. Many colonies and every new state after 1776 required local communities to create public schools.

As it became clear that the benefits of public education spread far beyond local communities, states began to support those schools. Under the leadership of Thaddeus Stevens, who was the great educator before he became the great liberator, Pennsylvania became the first state to do so in 1834.

Private schools have always existed alongside the public schools, and Pennsylvania today offers business tax credits that provide $350 million in support for private schools.

But Republican extremists from outside Pennsylvania, like billionaire Betsy Devos, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education, have always wanted much more: a radical, voucher-based alternative to the public school system in every state. When Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court plainly said that our public schools are inadequately and inequitably funded, Republicans lied and said it called for more support for private schools.

And now the Senate Republicans are holding the state budget hostage for what looks like a small investment in vouchers. That Betsy Devos and other billionaire extremists embraced it, however, shows us that the ultimate goal of the program is the total replacement of public schools. States that have taken the first step in this direction, like Ohio and Arizona, have been traveling down that slippery slope ever since they first enacted a voucher program with declining funding for public schools.

What would be wrong with a privatized school system?

Most importantly, it would be an elitist system, in which wealthy parents would supplement state vouchers to attend schools that were far better funded than the schools the rest of our children could attend. The promise of America, to offer real freedom and equal education to all, would come to an end. England’s rigid class system, which our founders sought to displace, would be recreated here.

This elitism would not only block the way forward for working people, it would especially affect Black and brown people, who have far fewer resources to attend private schools but receive no more under the voucher plan proposed here and in other states. A privatized education system would be an inherently racist one.

Second, our children would no longer attend schools that teach American ideals. There are too many who attend schools that teach religious ideas that conflict with our ideals and that undermine respect for science and rational thought itself. And the private schools attended by the wealthy would, implicitly or explicitly, teach their students that they are members of the elite, who deserve to rule over the rest of us.

And third, economic growth, which grew because of our huge investment in public schools and the skills and talents of our people, would slow down as fewer people have access to an excellent K-12 education and the opportunities for further education and training it creates.

Like the British monarchs and aristocrats before them, the wealthy elitists who back vouchers think that America’s success depends on people like them having outsized political and economic power.

We need to remind them and their supporters, among whom are Republican legislators and Governor Shapiro, that the success—and the soul—of America depends on fairly and fully funded public schools that provide opportunity and freedom for all.

 

 

July 5, 2023

PRESS RELEASE: Update on PA Budget Negotiations

By Press Release
July 3, 2023

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kirstin Snow, snow@pennpolicy.org

Update on Budget Negotiations

With $13 billion in accumulated surplus and a budget from the governor that proposed modest additions to state spending on policies that have broad support, one would expect that making a budget deal would be easy.

Yet the budget deadline came and went.

House Democrats passed a budget four weeks ago with more funding for a number of programs, including education, where they added to basic education funding and special education funding, and added the popular Level Up program back into the budget. They then passed a minimum wage bill that was not perfect but would put Pennsylvania on a path to $15. Governor Shapiro embraced both plans.

Senate Republicans passed a profoundly flawed budget, at the last minute, that rejected most of the House plan. Its worst element, however, was the inclusion of a $100 million down payment on a radical plan, sponsored by extremist billionaires like Betsy Devos and Jeffrey Yass, to destroy our public school system. Then they left town.

The House Democrats had already made clear that there will be no voucher program adopted this year or for as long as they are in the House majority. (And given that their stance on all the critical issues is totally aligned with the majority in public polls, they may well be in the majority for a long time.)

So, we’re back to square one.

How did we get here?

First, negotiations started later than usual. There were new political circumstances: a Democratic House majority that did not really take power until the special elections in March, a new governor, and new leadership in the Senate. The new people, with power in their hands, had to take time to build relationships, internally and externally, and learn the ropes of the budget process.

Second, in an extraordinary display of political chutzpah, having lost the education funding case in court, the Republicans tried to twist the decision—which calls for a new, fair system of funding public schools—into a mandate to radically restructure our education system by privatizing schools.

Third, the Republicans not only misread the opinion of the courts but may have misread Governor Shapiro as well. The governor signaled his willingness to support a modest Lifeline scholarship program during his campaign and has continued to do so ever since. However, his support was contingent on funding public schools fully and fairly. When public schools are so radically underfunded, any allotment of money for vouchers takes away critical funds from these schools. And the Senate Republican budget does far less than the House Democratic budget. While the Governor has not been as clear as we’d like, we hope his unwillingness to embrace the Senate budget indicates that he’s having second thoughts about the school voucher plan. As he thinks about his political future, the Governor must be concerned that the endorsement of the Senate plan by anti-government extremists Betsy Devos and Grover Norquist reveals that Republicans see Lifeline scholarships not as a supplement to public schools, but as a foot in the door for a radical restructuring of education funding in Pennsylvania.

Fourth, it appears that many Republicans don’t understand that they lost the last election: in fact, their gubernatorial candidate lost in a landslide. They lost the House majority for the first time in over a decade. While Senate Republicans did not lose seats—mostly because that chamber remains more gerrymandered than the House—the political landscape has shifted. But Republican expectations have not shifted with them.

The Republicans can legitimately claim a role in setting funding levels in the budget. But there seems to be a faction among Senate Republicans that is taking its cues from national Republicans, who think they can hold hostage any necessary government action—whether it is a state budget or an agreement to avoid default—until they get their way, no matter how radical their proposals are. This is, sadly, a product of the belief among Republican extremists that theirs is the only legitimate governing party. That, however, is not the view of most Pennsylvanians. Democrats here in Pennsylvania are not going to embrace extremist, radical ideas in the budget process any more than President Biden allowed it in Washington.

And fifth, Senate Republicans apparently believe that any delay in the budget will be blamed on Governor Shapiro. They fail to understand that, even before his effective leadership in managing the recent I-95 repair, the governor is widely admired and is in the best possible position to wait for them to accept political reality. And the Governor surely understands that the radical intent of the Lifeline program is deeply unpopular with Democrats, not just in Pennsylvania but around the country.

The House Democrats have accepted political reality. They have enacted many of their proposals (which are, frankly, progressive) but have done so in ways that have not pushed the envelope; and on many issues, they have won Republican support. When the Senate Republicans recognize political reality as well, they will be able to strike a budget deal with the House Democrats and Governor Shapiro.

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The Pennsylvania Policy Center creates the tools that political officials, opinion leaders, grassroots organizations, and the people of Pennsylvania need to expand our vibrant democracy, secure our freedom, and seek economic justice in Pennsylvania.

www.pennpolicy.org
July 3, 2023

Update on Pennsylvania Budget Negotiations

By Blog Post

With $13 billion in accumulated surplus and a budget from the governor that proposed modest additions to state spending on policies that have broad support, one would expect that making a budget deal would be easy.

Yet the budget deadline came and went.

House Democrats passed a budget four weeks ago with more funding for a number of programs, including education, where they added to basic education funding and special education funding, and added the popular Level Up program back into the budget. They then passed a minimum wage bill that was not perfect but would put Pennsylvania on a path to $15. Governor Shapiro embraced both plans.

Senate Republicans passed a profoundly flawed budget, at the last minute, that rejected most of the House plan. Its worst element, however, was the inclusion of a $100 million down payment on a radical plan, sponsored by extremist billionaires like Betsy Devos and Jeffrey Yass, to destroy our public school system. Then they left town.

The House Democrats had already made clear that there will be no voucher program adopted this year or for as long as they are in the House majority. (And given that their stance on all the critical issues is totally aligned with the majority in public polls, they may well be in the majority for a long time.)

So, we’re back to square one.

How did we get here?

First, negotiations started later than usual. There were new political circumstances: a Democratic House majority that did not really take power until the special elections in March, a new governor, and new leadership in the Senate. The new people, with power in their hands, had to take time to build relationships, internally and externally, and learn the ropes of the budget process.

Second, in an extraordinary display of political chutzpah, having lost the education funding case in court, the Republicans tried to twist the decision—which calls for a new, fair system of funding public schools—into a mandate to radically restructure our education system by privatizing schools.

Third, the Republicans not only misread the opinion of the courts but may have misread Governor Shapiro as well. The governor signaled his willingness to support a modest Lifeline scholarship program during his campaign and has continued to do so ever since. However, his support was contingent on funding public schools fully and fairly. When public schools are so radically underfunded, any allotment of money for vouchers takes away critical funds from these schools. And the Senate Republican budget does far less than the House Democratic budget. While the Governor has not been as clear as we’d like, we hope his unwillingness to embrace the Senate budget indicates that he’s having second thoughts about the school voucher plan. As he thinks about his political future, the Governor must be concerned that the endorsement of the Senate plan by anti-government extremists Betsy Devos and Grover Norquist reveals that Republicans see Lifeline scholarships not as a supplement to public schools, but as a foot in the door for a radical restructuring of education funding in Pennsylvania.

Fourth, it appears that many Republicans don’t understand that they lost the last election: in fact, their gubernatorial candidate lost in a landslide. They lost the House majority for the first time in over a decade. While Senate Republicans did not lose seats—mostly because that chamber remains more gerrymandered than the House—the political landscape has shifted. But Republican expectations have not shifted with them.

The Republicans can legitimately claim a role in setting funding levels in the budget. But there seems to be a faction among Senate Republicans that is taking its cues from national Republicans, who think they can hold hostage any necessary government action—whether it is a state budget or an agreement to avoid default—until they get their way, no matter how radical their proposals are. This is, sadly, a product of the belief among Republican extremists that theirs is the only legitimate governing party. That, however, is not the view of most Pennsylvanians. Democrats here in Pennsylvania are not going to embrace extremist, radical ideas in the budget process any more than President Biden allowed it in Washington.

And fifth, Senate Republicans apparently believe that any delay in the budget will be blamed on Governor Shapiro. They fail to understand that, even before his effective leadership in managing the recent I-95 repair, the governor is widely admired and is in the best possible position to wait for them to accept political reality. And the Governor surely understands that the radical intent of the Lifeline program is deeply unpopular with Democrats, not just in Pennsylvania but around the country.

The House Democrats have accepted political reality. They have enacted many of their proposals (which are, frankly, progressive) but have done so in ways that have not pushed the envelope; and on many issues, they have won Republican support. When the Senate Republicans recognize political reality as well, they will be able to strike a budget deal with the House Democrats and Governor Shapiro.

 

July 3, 2023

Penn Policy Speaks in Support of House Budget on K-12 Education

By Press Statement

Remarks by Marc Stier, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center, at a PA School Work press conference in support of the House passed budget for 2023-2024

In March, Governor Shapiro put forward a proposed budget that many of us said had the right priorities but did not offer enough funding for critical needs, including K-12 education. Last week, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a budget—with the support of Governor Shapiro—that added funding in many of those critical areas.

The House budget adds the basic education fund to the governor’s proposal. It includes new funding for the Level Up program, which provides additional money for the 108 least-well-funded school districts and adds money for special education and for repairing toxic schools. The House budget, which Governor Shapiro embraced, is a good down payment on what the state ultimately must do to meet the constitutional and moral requirements to fully and fairly fund our schools.

The additional funding in the House budget for education and other needs is made possible by the new revenue budget estimates provided by the Independent Fiscal Office. The IFO projects that the state will have almost a billion dollars more for the current and next fiscal years than the governor projected in March. At end of this fiscal year, on June 30th, the state will have a $13 billion accumulated surplus including the Rainy Day Fund and the General Fund surplus. If the House budget is adopted, the state will still have a $10.5 billion surplus on June 30th next year.

Contrary to some critics’ opinions of the House-passed budget, it does not reduce Rainy Day Fund but adds a bit more than $500 million to it. The House budget, like the Governor’s budget and any other budget that will be enacted this year, does draw down the accumulated General Fund surplus. That is exactly what it should do. The General Fund surplus is a product of tight budgets during the pandemic, federal pandemic aid, and a faster-than-expected recovery from the recession created by the pandemic. It was created by our tax dollars, and it should be used to support the needs of the state as identified by the people of Pennsylvania.

And that is what the House budget proposal does, as shown by the result of a poll carried out by Data for Progress last week.

The poll shows that 64% of Pennsylvania voters believe we are facing a severe teacher shortage in the state, and 69% of them believe that there are significant differences in education quality provided by public schools across Pennsylvania because some schools do not receive enough funding.

That does not mean that Pennsylvanians oppose our public school system. By a 26-point margin, Pennsylvania voters don’t want to replace our existing public school system with private schools funded by vouchers. Rather, they understand that our schools are not, but should be, fairly and adequately funded: 67% believe state government should be doing more to ensure that public schools are sufficiently funded, and 66% think that state government should be doing more to ensure that public schools are equally funded.

The Pennsylvania House budget passed last week does exactly what voters want— it takes a critical step forward in fully and fairly funding our schools.

June 15, 2023

Pennsylvania Policy Center Statement on General Fund Budget Passed by PA House

By Press Statement

For Immediate Release
Contact: Kirstin Snow, Communications Director, snow@pennpolicy.org; 215-510-9336

Harrisburg, PA–Marc Stier, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center, today released the following statement after the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed HB 611, a 2023-24 General Fund Budget, on party line vote.

“In March, Governor Shapiro proposed a budget that had the right priorities but proposed too little spending in certain key areas, including K-12 education, workforce development, and housing. The budget passed by the House of Representatives today follows the governor’s priorities but adds spending in areas we believe deserved additional support. That spending is supported by additional revenue expected in both the current fiscal year and in years 2023-24.

Going beyond the governor’s budget proposal, the House budget includes:

·      An additional $100 million in basic education funding

·      A $225 million Level Up supplement to the 108 most underfunded school districts in the state.

·      An additional $50 million for Special Education.

·      An additional $250 million for school facilities maintenance and improvements.

·      An additional $30 million for job training programs and $14 million for career and technical education.

·      $200 million for an expansion of the Whole Home Repairs program.

·      An additional $52 million for general support, facilities support for PASSHE schools; and $24 for PHEAA grants for students.

·      An additional $66 million for community and economic assistance programs and $30 million for the Keystone Communities program.

·      An additional $45 million for childcare services and assistance.

The first five items in the list constitute a strong down payment on the spending that will be necessary to meet the constitutional requirement to provide an adequate education to every child in Pennsylvania. The sixth item—funding for job training—is, we believe, a critical investment for Pennsylvania workers and our economy. And the seventh item, the addition to the Whole Home Repairs program, will take an additional step forward in helping low- and moderate-income Pennsylvanians deal with the current crisis in affordable housing.

Despite these welcome additions to Governor Shapiro’s proposal, this is a fiscally responsible budget plan. The state remains on pace to have a more than $13 billion budget surplus at the end of the current fiscal year, including an $8 billion operating surplus and over $5 billion in the Rainy Day Fund. This is a far greater surplus than is necessary or reasonable to maintain. The House budget for 2023-24 expects an ending balance of $5.6 billion before additions to the Rainy Day Fund, essentially the ending balance the governor proposed in March. The additional funding proposed by the Appropriations Committee is supported by higher revenue expectations for the current fiscal year ($663 million) and Fiscal year 2023-24 ($461 million) compared to the governor’s March projections. These higher revenue expectations are based on the IFO’s recent projections and are in keeping with both recent revenues and consensus estimates for growth in the Pennsylvania economy over the next year.

In addition, the House passed proposes to add an additional $558.7 million to the Rainy Day Fund. The governor’s budget did not propose adding anything to the Rainy Day Fund. If this budget is adopted, at the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year, that is on June 30, 2024, the state will still have an accumulated surplus of over $10.5 billion, including a General Fund operating surplus of $5 billion and a $5.7 billion Rainy Day Fund.

Given the large surplus, the higher than expected revenues, and the urgent needs of Pennsylvanians—including the need to fully and fairly fund our schools—it would be irresponsible not to enact a budget along the lines passed by the House Appropriations Committee. We commend Chairman Harris and the Democrats who devised this proposal. We hope that the Republicans who opposed it will reconsider when the bill comes to the floor of the House and the Senate.”

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The Pennsylvania Policy Center aims through its research and policy development to create the tools political officials, opinion leaders, grassroots organizations, and the people of Pennsylvania need to expand our vibrant democracy, secure our freedom, and seek economic justice in Pennsylvania. 

www.pennpolicy.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 6, 2023