Share:
House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | April 22, 2021 11:54 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative P. Michael Sturla |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Accelerated Fair Funding Formula |
| I plan to introduce legislation that would move Pennsylvania closer to fair funding in basic education across the Commonwealth. Currently, only “new” additional money allocated in each year’s budget is run through a fair funding formula as established in 2016. As a result, only about 11% of all dollars allocated to basic education are distributed in a fair manner. If all basic education dollars were run through the formula, there would be about 164 districts that would receive increases and about 336 districts would lose dollars unless about $1.15 billion were added to the basic education funding. My legislation proposes that we get there in the next 10 years without any tax increases. Under my bill, the first $150 million of all new money for basic education each year would go thru an accelerated fair funding formula that only goes to school districts that are underfunded if the entire basic education budget (past and present) were run thru the fair funding formula. Any additional dollars over $150 million that are allocated to basic education funding would be run thru the current fair funding formula. No school district would lose any dollars they currently receive and would only be flat funded if the legislature failed to allocate at least $150 million in new revenue for any given fiscal year. For too long, Pennsylvanians have been waiting for truly fair education funding. While not immediate, this proposal gets us there without raising taxes and without taking any dollars from any school district. A similar proposal was employed for special education funding during the Ridge Administration. Please join me in co-sponsoring this legislation. |
Introduced as HB1416