Corbett talks of Pa. budget woes

By Associated Press

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Corbett said this week that school districts could be dipping deeper into their reserves to avoid cutting programs next year, but public school advocates say most districts are already using the money and others are worried about being able to afford rising pension costs.

Corbett suggested during a regular appearance on the Dom Giordano Program on WPHT-AM in Philadelphia that school boards that are discussing reducing full-day kindergarten for half-days or getting rid of music or art programs are not using reserves to the extent they could.

“The school districts are making a concerted effort not to go into those reserves,” Corbett said, adding that reserves are a rainy day fund that should be used at times like this.

Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts are planning 2012-13 budgets as they struggle with cuts in state aid. Corbett blames the reduction on the disappearance of federal stimulus dollars, as well as lackluster tax collections and rising costs.

School officials in Harrisburg, York and Woodland Hills in suburban Pittsburgh have even raised the idea of getting rid of kindergarten entirely. All districts currently offer at least half-day kindergarten.

Eliminating kindergarten, said Jim Buckheit of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, is a desperate act for school districts because of the widely acknowledged value of early childhood education to a child’s success later in life.

“Most educators would rather get rid of high school before they got rid of kindergarten, but we’re mandated to have high school,” Buckheit said.

The most recent state data shows that school districts had almost $3.3 billion in reserves, but the data is a year old and the figure is likely to be lower now since districts used some of the money.

If districts with reserves do cut programs, Corbett said, “that’s their decision to do that, because they have the money in reserve, but the parents don’t know that.”

Public school advocates agree with Corbett this is a difficult time. All told this year, state aid for public school instruction and operations shrank by about $860 million, or more than 10 percent.

School districts cut their budgets by a total of 3 percent in this school year, or $414 per student, compared with the 2010-11 school year. That’s a total of about $732 million, an Associated Press analysis of state data has found. State aid cuts, as well as budget reductions, were deepest in poorer districts.