Gov. Ed Rendell's attempt to provide adequate funding for public school systems in the state under the 2009-10 budget — whenever a complete budget finally is approved — is, on the surface, laudable. His budget plan, announced in February, proposed an increase of $300 million in the state's share of funding for public schools.

The issue is what the public considers adequate amid the commonwealth's financial difficulties.

Education funding has been one of the key points of contention regarding the governor's proposal to increase the personal income tax to 3.57 percent from the current 3.07 percent. But the prospects for such an income tax increase might have died Monday as the result of reasonable opposition from a group of conservative Western Pennsylvania Democrats, called the Blue Dogs.

While it's important that education be funded adequately, education should not be funded excessively — especially at a time of such economic woe as currently is being experienced.

"Adequate" funding by the state should not be used for more teacher contracts that provide yearly wage increases well above the inflation rate and overly generous fringe benefits.

In this economy, stepped-up education funding should be for new or expanded programs and educational opportunities for children, not to fatten teachers' wallets and pocketbooks.

That is an issue most Butler County taxpayers can understand.

The Butler and Slippery Rock school districts approved early bird contracts with teachers that provide for excessive pay increases, considering the economy and in comparison with what most workers in other sectors of the economy are receiving.

Before Butler and Slippery Rock, it was the Seneca Valley School District that succumbed to well-above-inflation increases despite initially holding firm against excessive pay raises during a bitter, strike-marred contract dispute.

The South Butler School District still is engaged in a contract stalemate with its teachers that resulted in a strike during the past school year and which could produce another walkout. No doubt the South Butler School Board is watching the state's current budget battle closely as it continues to re-evaluate its negotiations stance, because of the uncertainty over what the district's 2009-10 state subsidy will be under a new commonwealth budget.

If Rendell's adequate-funding-for-education proposal contains no stipulations mandating that most of any extra money received be targeted for improving education, not improving salaries, the governor's proposed generosity to the education sector is misplaced.

It's long past due for the education community to share some of the realities with which other workers in the economy are forced to live — since those other workers' taxes help pay teachers' salaries.

In addition to much-above-the-rate-of-inflation salary increases, teachers continue to pay a pittance toward their health care, unlike most people in other sectors of the economy.

Butler County school districts have experienced resistance by teachers unions toward contributing more toward their health care, despite the generous salary increases they've received.

Adequate — but not excessive — education funding in the new state budget would force school districts to watch their dollars closely and be less generous at contract time, if they wished to avoid local property tax increases. It's long past due for school districts to hold firm to the stance that people who can't afford an increase in the state's personal income tax also can't afford an increase in their school taxes.

Neither Rendell nor the Legislature currently is talking about the 2001 pension grab that is expected to exact big hits on school districts' budgets beginning in two or three years — payments to teachers' pension plans that observers believe will necessitate significant property tax increases.

In their negotiations, teachers unions also have ignored that issue.

Again, education deserves its fair share under whatever 2009-10 budget plan finally is enacted. However, the state's 500 school districts don't deserve more than their fair share, which is the picture that Rendell's proposed 2009-10 education funding proposal portrays, considering the state of the economy and the amount of the state's budget shortfall.

Rendell and his Democratic colleagues must rein in his education funding demands to a reasonable figure consistent with the commonwealth's fiscal difficulties. Republican lawmakers should not give in to the education-funding excess that Rendell's $28.2 billion budget plan seeks.

This is a moment in Pennsylvania financial history when all segments of the economy must make sacrifices — even school districts and teachers unions.