Posted on 03/07/2006 6:24:07 AM PST by Nextrush
As hefty school taxes remain an unsolved problem in Pennsylvania, lawmakers are about to study ways to consolidate more school services-and even look at the controversial notion of mergin district administrations into countywide systems.
State Rep. Stan Saylor, R-Windsor Township, is prodding lawmakers to consider countywide systems, saying it works in states such as Maryland. The House Education Committee expects to hold public hearings in the coming months.
Meanwhile Rep. Bev Mackereth,R-Spring Grove, has asked House leaders to fund a study from next year's budget to examine the issue, saying lawmakers need to do their homework before eyeing a bill.
"We're going to work on venting the idea-the pros and cons of it," said Saylor, who has not yet drafted a bill to consolidate.
School consolidation is a hot-button issue because it sparks debates about student need and local identities.
Supporters say it makes good fiscal sense and would bridge the funding gap between rich and poor districts, but school administrators say potential savings are overestimated.
Rep. Steven Nickol, R-Hanover, summed up the issue this way: "Everybody wants to keep their neighborhood school, and they want to spend less."
Gov. Ed Rendell's administration will consider ways to boost school purchasing power, but does not embrace wholesale merging of districts, Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak said last week. The administration wants "the best personalized education so no child is left out," Zahorchak said.
The House Education Committee hearings will look at several consolidation measures, from merging administrations to more bulk purchasing through intermediate units, executive director David Dumyer said.
Saylor wants to consider county referendums asking voters to choose whether to merge into one countywide administration, but he doesn't want to close any school or scrap any sports team.
"The only difference is everything would be under one administration," Saylor said.
He said merging administrations would save money with one countywide superintendent and one business manager. It would also allow more bulk purchasing and a standardized curriculum.
If he can't convince the Legislature to approve referendums across the state, Saylor said he might prusure a plan to name York County as a pilot for consolidation.
York City School Board President Tom Foust said he would like to go even further than Saylor and merge school populations. He said that would give every school a better cross-section of the county population and prevent certain schools from having a large proportion of poor students.
"Students make the school and one of the difficulties we have (in York City) is we don't have the number of middle-income and high-income students that we used to," Foust said.
But even merging administrations would help York City with its finances because it would allow the district to tap into a larger tax base, Foust said.
Saylor's argument for cost savings also resonates with the York County Taxpayers Council. President Joel Sears said he is "totally in favor of it."
"The administratiin costs are beyond belief in some districts, and we think consolidation will help by bringing them down to some degree," Sears said.
Not so, said York Suburban Supt. William Hartman.
Hartman said mergers would mean more mid-level managers and less local control of educational decisions.
"The voice of parents and citizens in the operation of their school would decline significantly at the county level," Hartman said.
While Hartman said he's willing to look at sharing more services, he said schools already save through joint purchasing of supplies and utilities at their local intermediate unit.
Another issue that needs to be considered is how any consolidation would treat districts that cross county lines, such as the West Shore School District in northern York and Cumberland counties.
Illustrating how controversial the issue is, some proposals to completely merge school districts in the midstate were shot down in recent decades.
Locally, the South Western board voted in 1988 to reject a plan to merge with the Hanover Public School District.
In Franklin County, the Tuscaroara and Fannett-Metal school districts studied a possible merger more than 10 years ago but never approved it. The study found that a merger would not save money because transportation costs would soar in the sprawling rural area, Fannett-Metal Supt. Dana Baker said.
Though legislative leaders are trying to negotiate a new plan to cut school property taxes, Makcereth said lawmakers need to keep looking at other solutions. She's skeptical that any new property-tax plan will mean substantial cuts to growing local districts.
Saylor admitted consolidation will meet resistance, but said the key to winning approval for it is educating people about it.
"We're not going to rush into this. That's the worst thing you can do," Saylor said.
At worst, this is a cave to the "Education Establishment" including the National Education Association and its PA affiliate, the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Saylor and Mackereth have both been endorsed in the past by PSEA at election time. (I even have the documentary evidence from PSEA fliers) This "Taxpayers Council" is a front for the Republican Party establishment in York County because I've seen party literature connecting the former group to appearances at GOP meetings. The party wants to re-elect the incumbents and this group helps them look good, (Taxpayers Council sounds nice, don't it)
Well, now the facts. Cut out a dozen or so 100-thousand a year superintendents in York County, You save 1.2 million.
But now give more than a thousand teachers 5-10 thousand dollar a year pay raises so they get paid as much as teachers in the highest paid district in the county. That's at least 5 to 10 million dollars more in spending. Who's paying the bill? LOL
For years the union (PSEA) has complained in contract talks that some teachers in the county don't get paid as much as others. This countywide single school district would naturally "equalize" the pay and that would be a kick in the taxpayers pants.
Add the comments in the story about loss of local control from Supt. Hartman of York Suburban and you get the picture.
What a scheme? And from Republicans, too....
From what I can see, you folks have a very depressing, gloomy state with very little to recommend it. And it's more expensive to live here than I would have thought. (Giant Eagle is more expensive than Gelson's, and I leave it to you to guess which is the better shopping experience.)
From what I can see, the property tax amount on a "cheap, average" home in Pennsylvania (around $150k) is about the same as it on a "cheap, average" home in California (around $500k) -- which is quite the trick since property values in California are more than triple Pennsylvania. In Florida, which is a much better run state with a far higher quality of life than Pennsylvania, the property tax on that same $500k home is $500.
So the problem of high property taxes here is real, and I would not deny it.
However, from what I could see of the miserable Los Angeles Unified School District, consolidation is not the answer. In California, the LAUSD, which offers universally awful schooling, spends more per pupil than the Calabasas school district which is independent and offers excellent quality education.
Thanks to the raw political power of the LAUSD and its unions, it is nearly impossible to reform. Undoing a consolidation, even when everyone but union officials agrees the consolidation was a bad idea, is next to impossible.
Now, personally, I'm moving to the Philippines in November instead of enduring another depressing Pittsburgh winter. So I suppose I have no dog in this fight, since my loyalty to the city and state is precisely zero. But for those of you who have to stay, or for some reason want to stay, I would like to suggest that consolidation is about the worst possible thing you can do.
Why not close some schools in areas that don't have enough kids to support them? That seems like the better idea.
D
You can cut administrative costs for everyone by rolling back the red tape.
Well, that is the answer. But that would involve laying off teachers and closing buildings. Can't have that (even though the number of school-age students has dropped since the 90's and never returned to the level of the 70's...).
It's depressing living in a dying place, I'm afraid.
That being said, you know this kind of thing is pushing people to Florida. No high heating bills, no high property taxes, and the warm climate is a lot easier on the human body than what we face up here.
I predict Pennsylvania will continue to lose population because this is a big problem and I just don't see a resolution of it short of bankruptcy.
D
The NEA..is a labor union for it's members. And they will spend millions of dollars to keep the status quo...
It's not "for the children"...it's about jobs. Pure and simple.......
Public school systems are already a monopoly for all practical purposes. However, the respective school districts do compete with each other to some limited extent.
When you combine them, you remove that last little bit of incentive to do perform better.
Meanwhile, out in my (Downingtown Area) school district, the GD highschool got permission to raise school taxes so they could PUT ASTROTURF DOWN on the football field.
Here in York County the race is on for artificial turf after Central York put up the first field in the county with artificial turf. They used a neat trick at Central, creating a foundation to raise the money to put the turf in, of course the taxpayers get to pick up the cost of maintaining the thing. Sounds like you got it worse over there with the taxpayers actually paying to put the turf in,too.
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