Nesbit Supports Effort to Restore Schools’ Education Funding
HARRISBURG – Rep. Tedd Nesbit (R-Mercer/Butler) was one of 149 House members today to vote in favor of
House Bill 1589, the General Assembly’s latest attempt to reverse the governor’s decision to distribute state education dollars without an agreed-to funding formula.
Although Gov. Tom Wolf allowed the 2015-16 state budget to become law without his signature, he took his veto pen to the Fiscal Code, the state’s instruction manual on how state budget dollars are to be spent.
That veto also nullified a new funding formula to more fairly distribute additional state education dollars to school districts across the state. Instead, the governor unilaterally decided to develop his own funding formula – without legislative authority – to distribute $200 million in new education dollars. About half of that is being directed to three school districts: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Chester Upland.
“The decision to send about half of the new education money in the 2015-16 state budget to just three school districts just doesn’t add up,” Nesbit said. “Throughout our budget negotiations, all sides agreed that the additional education funding would be distributed through a new formula of which all sides endorsed. Even if Gov. Wolf didn’t like everything in the Fiscal Code, he could have still distributed the money using that formula. Instead, he chose winners and losers, and the uncertainty of the 2015-16 budget cycle continues.”
Nesbit pointed out that all school districts in the 8th District will receive more money as part of the 2015-16 state budget than they did in the 2014-15 fiscal year. At issue is how the new money is being distributed – and the fact that 428 districts across the state are being shortchanged of the amounts they were supposed to receive when the 2015-16 budget was finalized.
In total, schools in the 8th District are collectively being shortchanged approximately $141,000.
“I am hopeful that today’s bipartisan vote will send yet another message to Gov. Wolf that we need to work together to help solve the state’s problems,” Nesbit added.
Representative Tedd Nesbit
8th Legislative District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Jennifer Keaton
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