City budget not last word on money for Philadelphia public schools

Philadelphia City Council is on the way to passing a budget that doesn’t provide half the extra money requested by the School District of Philadelphia. More could be on the way.

Even though the current budget only provides $40 million in new money for the schools, Council President Darrell Clarke says his colleagues are still brainstorming about how to provide more funding.

“I have along with a number of other councilmembers has a number of ideas on how to provide revenue to the school district and we will be rolling those out very shortly,” said Clarke.

Clarke would not elaborate on what the alternative revenue-generating ideas were, but did not say anything about new taxes.

“At the end of the day you cannot continue to tax individuals every time you have a fiscal problem either in the city of Philadelphia, School district or in the city in general,” he said.

If the budget is approved as is, Philadelphia schools will have additional $54 million hole in their budget.