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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2025 - 2026
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 3, 2024 03:25 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Carolyn T. Comitta |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Allowing Intermediate Units to Own Facilities for Instructional Use |
| Pennsylvania’s 29 intermediate units (IUs) serve an important role by providing instructional and operational services to school districts throughout the state. Every year, more than 175,000 students and 50,000 educators receive services and training from IUs, meeting a variety of needs for students and school districts. While intermediate units are authorized to own facilities themselves, this is limited only to office space and warehouse facilities, a limitation that does not exist for area career and technical schools or charter schools. Many IUs operate classrooms and other instructional spaces as providers of important special education, pre-school programs, and other educational services. All these instructional facilities must be leased, burdening IUs with rental costs that sometimes greatly exceed what it would cost the IU to purchase and own the facility themselves. The increased costs for leasing property is transferred to school districts and ultimately, taxpayers. In addition to inflating costs for IUs, these limitations also create inadequate learning conditions and prevent IUs from providing facilities that are tailored for the needs of the students they serve. Our legislation would remove this limitation on intermediate units owning facilities, allowing them to own instructional space and use facilities they already have for instructional purposes. This legislation is supported by the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units (PAIU). Please join me in co-sponsoring this legislation that would allow our IUs to be fiscally responsible and provide the best possible learning conditions for our students. |