The plan relies on a proposed increase in the personal income tax from 3.07% to 4.49%. Wolf says he’d add exemptions so that only the wealthiest third of Pennsylvania’s residents would see their tax bills increase. Republican leaders have already flatly rejected the idea as “dead on arrival.”
If Wolf’s proposals did pass, they would be transformative for many of Pennsylvania’s most cash-strapped school districts.
The biggest winners in terms of per-pupil funding would be school districts in areas including York City, Allentown, Reading, Johnstown, Pottstown, Scranton, Harrisburg, Aliquippa, and Norristown: all districts with high rates of families in poverty.
The proposed funding change felt like a “shot in the arm” Wednesday for Greater Johnstown School District Superintendent Amy Arcurio. Her district would gain about $13 million under Wolf’s plan — about a quarter of its total current revenue.
Arcurio said her first priority would be replacing a leaky roof on one of the district’s elementary schools.
“We are constantly trying to patch it so that we don’t have pools of water on the floor in our school,” she said. “It’s that profound and simple: We would buy a roof.”
While the Greater Johnstown School District has lost students since the early 1990s, many of the districts that stand to gain the most have grown over the years.
Enrollment in the Norristown Area School District has jumped by more than one-third since 1991. Superintendent Christopher Dormer says that the state’s failure to reflect that in its funding has forced his district to lean harder on local property taxes — they’ve gone up five times in the last five years.
“We are literally driving people to make choices of selling their home [because they can’t afford taxes],” Dormer said. “It breaks our heart. But at the same time we have a responsibility to make sure we have the staffing and the resources to provide what we feel is the best education for our students.” Wolf’s plan would give the district an additional $18 million.