We like to poke fun at the folks who represent us in Harrisburg in this space.
Hey, they don't call Pennsylvania - the place where our governor and Legislature butted heads over a spending plan for nine months - the "Land of Giants" for no reason.
But something very important happened yesterday in the state capital.
It's called a fair funding formula for education.
Pennsylvania, unfortunately, was one of three states in the nation, that did not utilize one in dispersing funds to local school districts.
Not anymore.
Yesterday the state House approved a measure that would make the fair funding formula that was suggested by a bi-partisan Basic Education Funding Commission permanent, part of the Pennsylvania School Code.
The new formula will take into crucial elements such as enrollment, special education needs of the district, the economic condition of the community and the capacity to raise revenue.
The measure now goes to Gov. Tom Wolf, who has indicated he will sign it.
If you don't think this is important, you should talk to the people in Upper Darby, William Penn and Interboro School districts.
In Upper Darby, they are tightening their belts and not raising taxes, despite looking at a deficit in the neighborhood of $6.5 million.
That likely won't be the case in William Penn, where they are staring at a tax hike despite also tapping into their fund balance.
And things are even worse in Interboro, where the school board is looking at a decidedly unpopular mix of raising taxes and slashing jobs.
We used our editorial page today to lay out the case for the fair funding formula, and the hope that Gov. Wolf doesn't waste any time in signing it.
For Harrisburg, this was indeed a 'giant' step
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