Students Walk Into 2024 with Education Funded Largely by 2014 Statistics

Pennsylvania’s lawmakers went home bragging about a $1.3 billion increase to education funding in the budget this year. However, that money is split between 500 school districts and does not erase disparity caused by decades of status quo funding.

However, significant changes in funding formulas gave struggling districts much needed cash flow and superintendents are optimistic that change will continue.

Most of a school districts funding from the state comes from the Basic Education Fund. The state increased the fund by $285 million.

Many districts will also get a deposit from a new adequacy formula.

The formula—which is the response to courts saying Pennsylvania unconstitutionally funds schools—has two goals.
First, ease the burden of property tax on local communities.

“It's a challenge for our senior committee especially, our senior community, to continue to be able to facilitate paying those taxes,” said Daryl Miller, county commissioner in Bradford County.

The second goal of the adequacy formula is to set a standard for how much school districts should spend on each student… then give extra money to the districts not meeting that goal.

In our viewing area, Erie City and Iroquois School Districts received significant funds from the adequacy formula.

Over reliance on property tax and not enough funds for each student is because of how Pennsylvania funded education for decades.

“The funding formula has not been tied to student count since 1995,” said Brian Polito, superintendent for Erie City School District.

As communities changed, school district funding stayed stagnant. Districts that lost student populations had more money to spend on fewer pupils. Districts with low median incomes had less local support, as state funds stayed static.

“This created a system of winners and losers in the funding formula,” said Polito.

In 2014, the state created the Basic Education Funding Formula that took into account population, income, and property tax. But, only new education funds would be distributed by the formula.

“They never really put it in place,” said Shane Murray, superintendent for Iroquois School District. “They added a little more money to the budget at times. But it didn't really close the gap from the school districts that were very much in need.”

Pennsylvania spends a third of it’s budget on education—roughly $18 billion dollars this year. Out of that $18 billion, almost half goes to Basic Education Fund. And in that Basic Education Fund, only 27% of the funds go through the Basic Education Funding Formula (which was updated this year for the first time since 2014).

Roughly 75% of what schools are paid from the fund is based on their 2014 pre-formula budget.

The budgets that had not been student focused since 1995.

“the state has us around $107 million behind,” said Polito.

Schools say that new funds this year have been put to use.

“Our teachers up until this past the end of our last contract were near the bottom of being paid,” said Murray. “And we just settle the contract that we're able to give a decent sized raise to get us back towards the middle.”

“You know, we were able to to balance our budget,” said Alana Huck, superintendent of Wellsboro School District. "We moved around some funds so we could meet the new mandates with the new security that needs to be in our buildings.”

But $1.3 billion divided 500 ways… remains a drop in the bucket.

“It's a good start. But the the legislature has a long way to go to meet the demands that the judge put on them in that case.”