PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Pennsylvania's public school staffing at 10-year low :: 08/15/2014
The number of public school teachers and support staffers employed in Pennsylvania began falling the year before Gov. Tom Corbett took office and passed his first budget, according to state employment figures that show school staffing is at its lowest point in a decade.
An attack ad this week by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf blames Corbett for cutting state education funding, and his website says those cuts "removed 20,000 teachers from the classroom," but neither notes the downward trend was under way.
"Corbett cut a billion dollars from education," Wolf tells the camera. "Now almost 80 percent of school districts plan to raise property taxes."
The Republican Party of Pennsylvania shot back, deriding the statement as a lie and telling Wolf to remove the ad.
Billy Pitman, Corbett's campaign spokesman, said stimulus funding "artificially propped up" school budgets.
"Pension costs need to be addressed for school districts, not only to have more resources to put directly into the classroom but to provide, in the long term, some kind of property tax relief," Pitman said.
Pennsylvania lost about 11,200 teachers and staff during Corbett's term, according to state data.
Last September, the academic year began with the lowest number of employees at Pennsylvania public school districts since there were 286,600 in 2003, according to the state's Center for Workforce Information and Analysis.
Pennsylvania's public education system peaked at 304,800 teachers and staff in 2009 and then fell in 2010 and 2011 to 290,300. It reached 279,100 in September 2013.
Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, pointed to sinking state aid and rising pension obligations.
"It's a revenue and expenditure issue," Himes said. "That's why this problem is not unique to a size, a location, a wealthy or a poor district."
http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/6603064-74/state-corbett-districts#axzz3ARwKDwot
