HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Education Secretary Ron Tomalis said Monday he was disappointed at local school districts’ response to Gov. Tom Corbett’s call for school employees to accept a voluntary one-year wage freeze.

Only about 30 of the state’s 500 districts have totally frozen pay for teachers, administrators and staff members, Tomalis told an audience of several dozen people at a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon.

“I’m a little dismayed,” Tomalis said, citing administration estimates that a statewide pay freeze would free up $400 million that districts could use to help offset deep cuts that Corbett has advocated for schools to help balance the state budget for the fiscal year that starts Friday.

Tomalis’ count excluded 10 districts that agreed to a general wage freeze for all employees but that kept seniority-based step increases that he said ranged between 2 and 4 percent.

He also excluded nearly 100 districts that have frozen salaries for certain employee groups, according to an informal list maintained by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. About one-third of districts are still negotiating contracts, PSBA officials said.

Spokesman David Broderic of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said many of its members are working with school boards on an array of cost-saving measures, including potential pay freezes, but that many districts would be forced to also cut programs to offset the proposed reductions in state aid.

Tomalis said more than $1 billion in salary increases have been paid out in public education in the past three years, “while the moms and dads across the commonwealth are struggling day to day.”

Tomalis also made a pitch for school vouchers legislation — another Corbett priority — that appeared to be foundering as the Republican-controlled Legislature focused increasingly on a proposed $27.15 billion state budget built upon the GOP governor’s plan that should be in place by Friday, the first day of a new fiscal year.