The Pennsylvania House signed off on a spending plan last night, passing a $27.3 billion spending plan.
It returns a lot of money for education that had been stripped out by Gov. Tom Corbett in his austere original spending plan. The measure now goes to the Senate, where it likely faces a little more scrutiny.
Rep. Bill Adolph, who told us during a visit to our Primos office last week for our ‘Live From the Newsroom’ show that changes would be made to help with the education cuts, was on the money.
“I understand the line items out there that mean an awful lot to the individual districts that we represent,” said Adolph, who is the Majority Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “We listened, and we put together a responsible budget that did not put a tax burden on our families and businesses.”
The spending plan does not increase taxes.
That is not making Democratic state Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland, D-159, of Chester, any happier.
Kirkland says the spending plan will hurt state children, especially those in impoverished districts such as Chester Upland.
Kirkland said the plan would result in a per student cut of $2,443 per student in Chester Upland.
Kirkland and other Dems want $1 billion in additional revenue sitting in reserve funds to be used to offset the cuts.
Don’t look for the Senate, also controlled by the GOP, to do that.
We’ve been chronicling the problems facing Delaware County school districts and their budgets all week in our series, “Schools of Hard Knocks.” Today's installment looks at the concerns of teachers' unions. Click here to read it.
Don’t look for the problem to go away anytime soon.
Comments