With the state legislature returning to session this afternoon and the countdown to the constitutionally-mandated deadline for a state budget at 27 days, the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative group, has issued a report on public school funding, which is a traditional budget battleground.
The report studies the fund balances of every school district in the state, pointing out that state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has said reserves that are more than twenty percent over a district’s spending should be “questioned”. According to data from the state Department of Education, 226 of Pennsylvania’s school districts are holding “rainy day funds” of more than twenty percent of their annual expenses. That includes five of the seven school districts in Indiana County.
The largest General Fund Balance as a percentage of total spending in the county is Purchase Line’s, at 51 percent. United’s is 32.3 percent, followed by Blairsville-Saltsburg, at 32.2 percent, Homer Center at 26.6 percent, and Penns Manor at 26.5 percent. School districts whose balances are less than twenty percent of spending are Marion Center, at 5.7 percent, and Indiana Area, with a fund balance of 11.6 percent.
The numbers do not include funds being held in reserve for planned construction costs.
The Commonwealth Foundation says school districts with such large balances should not be permitted to raise taxes, especially in light of the number of districts which regularly request increases that are above the state index.
School districts with larger fund balances maintain that it’s simply a matter of good financial practices that enable them to handle emergencies, such as rising pension costs, teacher strikes, and our state’s annual late budgets.
