School budget woes could worsen in Pa.

A year that has been hard on Pennsylvania’s public school budgets, particularly in the state’s poorest districts, could be followed by an even tougher year.

The administration of Gov. Tom Corbett is preparing a budget proposal Tuesday that will address a projected deficit, the state government’s fourth in a row. And many lawmakers believe the Republican will press for more cuts to public school funding just a year after he and the GOP-controlled Legislature leveled the biggest school aid reduction in at least several decades to help close a multibillion-dollar shortfall.

Corbett’s budget unveiling comes at a time when school districts’ costs for pensions, salaries and health care are rising, and computer and textbook purchases and routine maintenance are being put off.

Language, tutoring, arts and athletics programs are shrinking in many districts, while class sizes are growing.

It also comes as lawmakers warn Corbett that he needs to come up with a plan to deal with a growing number of school districts that could run out of money to pay bills, as impoverished Chester Upland, near Philadelphia, already did.

For now, many district officials are giving a gloomy outlook. Local tax revenues are stagnant, deficits are looming, reserves are shrinking and property tax increases are on the drawing board for next year’s budgets — along with the possibility of more painful cutbacks.

“I just hope (Corbett and state lawmakers) look, at a minimum, to level funding and we’ll see if we can get by on that for another year,” said Bronson Stone, the superintendent of the approximately 900-student Susquehanna Community School District in northeastern Pennsylvania. “But any further reduction after the massive hit last year, it’s uncalled for and we need a set of priorities in this state.”

The possibility of more school funding cuts has suburban Pittsburgh parent and Woodland Hills school board member Tara Reis “panic-stricken. I’m beyond afraid. And I’m an optimistic person.”

Last year, Corbett and the Legislature approved cuts in aid that, as a percentage, had the effect of drawing the most money away from the poorest districts because they tend to rely more heavily on state aid.

Administration officials have declined to answer questions about Corbett’s upcoming budget proposal, although revenues are lagging projections this year and they say costs for pensions, debt and health care will rise next year.

Last week, Education Secretary Ron Tomalis criticized the state’s past school funding practice for not diverting state dollars from school districts with shrinking enrollments to those that are growing.

Tomalis also has said that the growth of teachers’ ranks in recent years is out of step with dropping public school enrollments statewide, and has suggested that school employees’ collective raises of more than $1 billion since the recession began is excessive.

School funding is especially on lawmakers’ minds after a federal judge had to order Corbett to send an advance to the Chester Upland district after teachers pledged to work unpaid and district officials warned that they would have to shut schools down.

All told this year, Corbett cut about $860 million, or more than 10 percent, from aid that supports public school instruction and operations.

According to an Associated Press analysis of state data on school budgets, attendance and income, school districts cut their budgets by a total of 3 percent in this school year, or $414 per student, compared with last year. That’s a total of about $732 million.

Those reductions were deepest in poorer districts.

School districts that are in the bottom half of districts in average personal income reduced per-student spending by more than three times as much as the districts in the top half of personal income, according to AP’s analysis.

That translates to a reduction of $696 per student, or 5 percent, to $13,271 in the poorest half of school districts, versus a reduction of $192 per student, or 1 percent, in the wealthier half of districts to $14,569.

The spread was more extreme on the farthest edges of the income spectrum.

In the 20 poorest districts, where average income is $24,860, per student spending dropped by 7 percent, or $1,000, to $13,077. In the 20 wealthiest districts, where average income is $108,985, per student spending actually rose almost 1 percent, or $149, to $17,723.