Philadelphia’s finance director on Monday called a new cigarette tax requiring approval from state lawmakers in Harrisburg the city’s best shot for borrowing the funds that the School District of Philadelphia needs to open schools next month with a full complement of staff.

But that scenario has little chance of coming to pass. There are no plans by the Senate Majority Leader or House Speaker to recall either house into session before the start of school on Sept. 9, nor indication of support for the measure in the Republican-majority House and Senate.

Kia Hinton, 36, a mother from Southwest Philadelphia with three school-age children, said she was incensed that elected officials for the city and state left for summer recess without seeing to it that adequate funding was in place for the city’s school district.

“They have to work this out,” she said. “It’s unacceptable to the community, to parents and to children. I’m totally upset. I’m afraid what this means for our children. They’re not putting our children first. It’s insulting that it’s happening in the Black community.”

A delegation from Public Citizens for Children and Youth were among advocates for quality education who waited outside a 13th floor briefing room at the Municipal Services Building to press for more action from City Council, which is also out for summer break.

“It’s not an option for the first day of school to roll around and nothing has been done to put funding into place,” said Shanee Garner, PCCY’s co-director of education. “The city didn’t create this problem, but the city can make sure the problem is addressed.”

Democratic Sen. Vincent Hughes said that majority-GOP houses seem to be aligned with Grover Norquist, founder and president of Americans For Tax Reform, which is opposed to all tax increases.

Hughes said, “We’ll have to come back in September when the council is back in session and when the legislature is back in session and have more discussion on this issue of funding public education.”

He also said more work needed to be done to pave the way for $28 million generated by enhanced efforts to collect real-estate tax, which would mean an additional $28 million for the school district. “It’s not something that’s going to be easy to get done, but it has to get done,” Hughes said.

PCCY distributed fliers suggesting support for a proposal floated last week by Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez who wants to tap into the city’s General Fund to provide a one-time $50 million grant to the district, and pressuring the Senate to approve a levy on cigarettes and send legislation for signing to Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.

Finance Director Rob Dubow spoke out against withdrawing from the General Fund, because interest charges on the principal that must be repaid by the district would be cost-exorbitant.

Much of the discussion at Monday’s budget briefing focused as much on addressing the issue of funding parity of the current school funding formula, as it did on possible scenarios for providing the public school system with funds to reinstate most, if not all of more than 3,800 district employees who were laid off on June 30.

Dr. Lori Shorr, chief education officer for mayor’s office, said the Commonwealth has a funding formula that does not take into account the numbers and type of students, including those with learning disabilities or have native language other than English.

The district has committed to reinstating a secretary at each school, coaches, referees and maintaining remedial programs at the district’s lowest performing schools after identifying $33 million in savings, largely due to collections of outstanding debt from vendors who over-billed the district for services or were penalized for failing to fully comply with contractual obligations.

But layoffs are still in effect for a majority of key personnel, including hundreds of teachers, assistant principals, counselors and nurses, raising public concerns about school conditions and student safety just weeks before classes resume. Those positions were eliminated under a preliminary budget approved by the School Reform Commission, which oversees Pennsylvania’s largest school district with more than 200,000 students in public, private and charter schools.

Philadelphia Tribune – August 5, 2013 – Read article online