The Education Clause of our Commonwealth’s Constitution imposes a requirement which, given current economic climate consisting of inflation and increase in wages, any school official would call onerous. Under the Education Clause, the Commonwealth must “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.” Pa. Const. art. III, Sec. 14. Innocuous enough on its face, this language now has more teeth thanks to a recent court ruling.
Pennsylvania effectuates the Education Clause through a state-wide system establishing how each district is funded – some of the funds are provided by the state, others are generated by the districts themselves through taxes. This provides each district significant autonomy in deciding how, when, where, and most importantly, how much, to spend on education. While each district obtains a significant portion of its funding from the state, the significant portion it generates through its own taxpayers leaves the amount each district spends on its education up to the districts, which makes for great variation in spending from district to district.
This system was challenged by several school districts in William Penn School District, et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, et al, wherein the Commonwealth Court examined whether the system violates the Education Clause. In defense, the Department of Education argued that the current system does not violate the Education Clause because it serves the longstanding objective of “local control” – the ability of school districts to control how much they spend on education and how they spend it.
The Court held the current system violates the Education Clause because there are funding and performance gaps between “low-wealth” school districts and “higher wealth” school districts. The Court reasoned that changing the current system to “provide greater equalization among districts does not in any way dictate that local control must be reduced”; that under the current system, “low-wealth districts” lack local control because they lack sufficient funds to have meaningful choices; and if funding were more equal, the low-wealth districts would have “real choice” and the “higher wealth” districts would continue to have real choice by simply “generating” additional funds (1).
William Penn left us with no solution, and only a mandate for lawmakers and educators alike: to reform the current funding system. The exact nature of legislative reform that will result is unclear. One possibility is eliminating local school taxes and imposing a new statewide tax (income, real property, etc.) of an additional 10%. Decision could change future of PA public schools: William Penn School District vs. the Pennsylvania Department of Education – The Etownian. In 2021-2022, the Commonwealth added an extra $100,000,000 in state funding to be allocated to the 100 most underfunded school districts. ED620219.pdf.
For 2022-2023, the Commonwealth proposed an additional increase in state funding by $1.5 billion targeted primarily to underfunded districts. Id.
Per its own literature, however, the recent added state funding only addresses some of the state’s inadequate funding, which 405 of the state’s 500 districts suffer. It has been proposed that an additional $6 billion will be needed to adequately address the current system’s inadequacy. PA lawmakers weigh how to fix public school funding · Spotlight PA (2). It is unknown how or where the state will obtain those funds. Local taxation procedures may be altered by which the state appropriates a percentage of local taxes and apportions those funds to lower wealth districts. It seems unlikely that the state, on its own, will generate sufficient funds to adequately address the Constitutional violation identified in William Penn. Time shall tell.
Regardless, however, school districts should be aware of funding alterations which are already underway, with many more likely in store. If your school district is faced with budget modifications in light of William Penn, Siana Law can assist you in navigating such issues to ensure compliance with all applicable law.
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(1) The Court did not indicate how those additional funds would be “generated”, the source(s) from which they would be “generated”, etc.
(2) “Sen. Dave Argall (R., Schuylkill), who serves as majority chair of his chamber’s education committee, when asked how the funding talks were developing. ‘I just know that when the court case was resolved, there were many legislators who congratulated the court on its findings. But none of them ran up to the attic to the Legislative Reference Bureau to file a bill for a $6 billion tax increase.’ ”
PA lawmakers weigh how to fix public school funding · Spotlight PA
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