Pennsylvania law mandates that local school districts provide an education for our kids, yet the state foots less than half of the bill  for the Huntingdon Area School District.  It's wrong to rely on local property tax to make up the bulk of K-12 funding. Our District's 2010-2011 budget reflects total expenditures of about $13,000 per student, whereas wealthier suburban districts spend up to $29,000 per student.*  That's not fair.

FUNDING CRISIS: For 2011-12, Governor Corbett and the state legislature have proposed massive cuts in the state's share of funding for education.  What this means for our district is that we will receive about $1.2 million less in basic support for education from the state.  This is mostly because the state is not restoring its portion of basic education funding that was temporarily provided by the federal government over the last two years.  At the same time, because of the failure of the legislature to properly manage the state pension fund over the past decade, starting this year and for years to come, the district's required contributions to the pension fund will far outstrip any increases in funding that are likely to come from the state or that will be possible to raise from local sources.  To balance the state budget, the Governor and Legislature are GUTTING EDUCATION, making a HUGE TAX SHIFT to local taxpayers AND KILLING JOBS in a fragile economic recovery! 

What this means now: Our district has been presented with options to make up the funding gap for this year that include closing two elementary schools (that's HALF of our elementary schools), cutting various programs including Driver's Education, part of our foreign language instruction, parts of music and art programs, instituting fees to participate in extracurricular activities, cutting programs that help students who need more instruction to do well in school, cutting all-day kindergarten or even doing away with kindergarten completely!

What this means later: Although this year Huntingdon might make a budget work by closing elementary schools, which would be truly unfortunate and affect ALL of the elementary students in the district, and by instituting other serious cuts which would affect ALL of the students in the district, the future isn't rosy.  Our school district, along with all others in the state would start from a new lower level of funding (perhaps back to levels from several years ago) and any increases in state funding would be from that new lower level.  The projected increases in retirement fund contributions themselves would more than eat up any potential increases in state support well into the future.  This, while ALL of the district's costs, including utilities, personnel, health insurance, etc., will keep going up.  This means continuing cuts, year after year, and increases for local property tax.

What we need to do: Write and call Governor Corbett, State Senator Eichelberger and State Representative Fleck.  Let them know this situation isn't right, and that we won't support politicians who want to gut our education and leave local communities holding the bag to make up for state budget cuts.  Here is a sample letter you can edit for yourself, or go to the links page to find it in various file formats.  Addresses to legislators and the Governor are on the links page.  If you're from another district, look at the links page to find your Senator and Representative, and feel free to edit the letter so that it applies to your district.  We also need to contact our U.S. Senators and Representatives and urge them to make sure to fill in the gap in special education funding and to provide more federal support for K-12 education.

FACTS:

In the past 15 years, the millage rate for the Huntingdon Area School District has gone up far less than inflation- 16% since 1996, vs. 36% for the CPI.

Local property tax is not indexed for inflation- so it has to be raised to match inflation.

Pennsylvania's state share of funding for K-12 education is lower than that of many other states (in 2007, 43 other states had a higher overall state share than did PA).  Our neighbor, West Virginia, contributes a much higher percentage to local school district budgets than does PA.

Fewer teachers, support staff, custodians, and yes, administrators employed in the local economy means less income for local businesses.

Although politicians say that "education spending is out of control," K-12 education spending in the U.S. accounts for the same percentage of GDP (4.6%) as it did in 1970.

Our district spends almost $2 million more per year than it is reimbursed by the federal government for special education services that are required by the federal government.  Pressure your federal legislators, the President and Secretary of Education to CLOSE THE GAP!

The federal government's tax receipts as a percentage of GDP are the lowest that they've been in 60 years. (see graphic here)

*the per-student cost is obtained by dividing the entire district budget by number of students served.  Not all districts would release figures for "instructional costs" only, so these figures represent all of the costs borne by the districts.