Representatives from Parkland, Salisbury, Panther Valley, Bethlehem and Nazareth Area school districts, along with circuit riders for the Pennsylvania Campaign for Fair Education Funding met Feb. 1 at the Salisbury Township Administration Building to discuss the impact of Senate Bill 76 on school districts.

The goal of SB 76, according to state Sen. David G. Argall, R-29th, is to eliminate all school property taxes across the commonwealth and replace those taxes with a combination of funding from personal income tax and sales and use tax.

“The school property tax has been a primary source of school funding since the 1830s,” Argall said. “The legislature cannot continue to ‘fix’ or ‘reform’ this archaic tax.

“That is why we are proposing a new education funding model that would promote economic growth and completely eliminate the school district property tax once and for all.”

Argall said the plan is to increase the sales and use tax by 1 percentage point and broaden the base of the state sales tax to include more services and products.

Necessities and business-to-business transactions will continue to be exempt from the sales tax. The state’s personal income tax would increase from 3.07 percent to 4.95 percent.

Administrators said if this legislation passes, not all school property tax will be eliminated. District debt will still need to be covered by homeowners.

The winners would be big businesses and corporations, landlords/commercial property owners, out-of-state property owners and many retired homeowners.

Parkland School District Business Administrator John Vignone commented on the proposed legislation.

“There is no bigger investment in our country, then the investment in education,” Vignone said.

Vignone also thanked members of the press saying, “they are a pipeline to the community.”

He also noted Parkland School District had all of the same concerns as the other districts.

“If school property tax elimination goes through, all of the other matters are not going to be in the forefront,” Vignone said. “This elimination will change the landscape of public education as we know it today.”

Vignone said they need to educate taxpayers and the legislators.

“Do the math,” Vignone said. “This elimination bill creates total uncertainty.

“If I were sitting in a room with legislators, I would say, ‘Folks you may solve that property tax problem a little bit but in a year from now you may sitting here with 10 times more problems. Be very careful. Think this through, very slowly. Understand the unintended consequences of what this can do, not only to education but also the commonwealth.’

“We need fair, consistent and stable funding in all of our schools in Pennsylvania,” Salisbury Township School District Superintendent Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss said in his opening remarks.

“Our students, whether they are graduating in 2017 or our kindergarten students graduating in 2029 are entering a world which is volatile, uncertain and complex in a future that is changing exponentially.”

Ziegenfuss asked the following questions.

“How will we prepare our learners for a future where 47 percent of our current jobs will be at risk to artificial intelligence, robotics and other technology?

“How will we prepare our learners for a future where one-third of the skill sets required by the year 2030 will be new?

“How will we prepare our learners for a future where 65 percent of children entering primary school will have jobs that don’t yet exist?”

Ziegenfuss said districts need stable funding from the commonwealth to focus on the learners and remain agile enough to best meet the constantly changing future - the future our learners will inhabit and create.

Chief Financial Officer Stacy Gober, Bethlehem Area School District, discussed the largest challenges including the mandated costs of charter schools and pensions.

Gober said since the 2007-08 school year, the mandatory pension costs have increased by 384 percent, mandated tuition to charter schools has increased by 441 percent.

The net increase for these two costs has gone from $9.9 million to $60.4 million, an increase of $50.5 million for two expenditures that are mandated beyond our control over the last 12 years.

“During that same period, basic education funding has increased $10 million. Where has the difference come from? That additional gap has been covered through the cost of reductions in our programs, deferred maintenance on various equipment purchases, school buses that needed to be updated or replaced to pass inspections, furloughs and the remainder has come from local community and our taxpayers,” Gober said. “We are running out of things to reduce.”

Superintendent Dennis Kergick, M.Ed., Panther Valley School District said his is one of the six school districts in the commonwealth that sought equity through the lawsuit filed by The Public Interest Law Center.

Approximately 65 percent of his students are living in poverty which requires additional supports and services.

“Our district relies heavily on state funding. It is unfortunate but with SB 76, the improvements made in the funding formula will be reversed and fair funding will be disrupted,” Kergick said.

Kergick said there are three big drivers in his budget: “PSERS, an increase of $375,000 to $2,525,000, charter school expenses with an increase of $300,000 to $1,200,000 and special education services with an increase of $100,000 to $1,500,000.

SB 76 proposes that eliminating all property taxes will fix the problem; it simply causes some far bigger areas of concern,” Kergick said. “Most taxpayers will pay more in taxes overall, business, landlords and retired residents without large investment income will benefit the most, ....renters will pay more taxes and the hard working lower and middle class will pay more in taxes.”

Almost all speakers were in agreement some sort of tax reform should be passed to help senior citizens and some offered suggestions other than SB 76.

School Director Linda Stubits, Nazareth Area School District, agreed how important it is to inform the community about the school districts’ concerns. In a recent community meeting, Stubits said residents were convinced parents of charter school students paid for the student to attend charter school, not the school district.

PA Circuit Rider Dr. Tom Seidenberger ended the news conference by saying, “It is imperative that the state increases or, at a minimum, maintains their level of support for public education.”