ARE MOST Pennsylvania school districts fooling Pennsylvania taxpayers?
Are they hoarding money while annually seeking more while poorer districts, including Philly’s, operate in crisis?
Well, there’s an interesting line in Gov. Corbett’s recent response to a school-funding survey.
The survey was by the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, an independent, nonprofit news service supportive of city schools.
The line?
“The 500 school districts throughout the Commonwealth have more than $3.5 billion in unreserved fund balances, representing overtaxation of their residents.”
You read that right.
The state Department of Education confirms the number ($3.58 billion) from its most recent data – 2011-12 school-district fund balances.
For context, the state budget for Basic Education Funding, K-12, is $5.4 billion.
So it seems a lot of tax dollars are being held by schools.
A department spokesman says that current balances are likely less than $3.58 billion – 2012-13 numbers are due in spring – but notes that such balances increased every year since 2005, when the total was $1.9 billion.
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