State Rep. Dan Deasy’s Report to the People

Reapportionment Update:

At the time of this writing, the Legislative Reapportionment Commission has still not finalized a new legislative district boundary map for State House districts. Therefore, the current district boundaries will stay in effect for the 2012 elections. My legislative district, the 27th State House district, includes the northern boroughs of Avalon, Emsworth, and Ben Avon; it also includes Glenfield Borough, Neville Township and part of Stowe Township, Dormont, McKees Rocks, Crafton and Ingram boroughs and parts of the 20th and 28th Wards of the City of Pittsburgh, including, Banksville, Chartiers City, Crafton Heights, East Carnegie, Elliott, Fairywood, Oakwood, Ridgemont, Sheraden, West End Village, Westwood, and Windgap.

My main district office remains at 436 S. Main Street in the West End Village.  I have satellite office hours at the Avalon Borough building on Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment and my staff is available to meet constituents at the Dormont Borough building by appointment.

Education:

I am upset that Governor Corbett has proposed another round of cuts to public education. This is the second consecutive year that education funding for pre-k through 12th grade will take a hard hit. For years, under the leadership of former Governor Ed Rendell, Pennsylvania made tremendous steps forward in education funding. It is, therefore, devastating to watch the current administration and the Republican leadership sacrificing our youth and the next generation by failing to prioritize public education.

The impact of these Pre-K – 12 cuts will follow students like ripples as they will enter college less prepared, needing more remedial study, taking longer to complete college and racking up higher student loans. To add salt to the wound, so to speak, the Governor is also proposing cuts in higher education funding to our community colleges, the state system of 14 universities and the 4 state–related schools. These higher education cuts are on top of the 10-19 percent cuts in higher education these institutions had to bear in last year’s state budget.

Funding of education on the state and federal levels is crucial if we are to expect our children, our future leaders, to be able to take our nation forward. Without adequate funding for basic and higher education, we will be closing the doors to education for many Pennsylvania youth, which will prove detrimental to our state and nation as a whole.

Next year School Districts will get $100 million less funding than in the current year under the governor’s plan.

• School funding in the current year was cut by nearly $1 billion in the Republican budget. Many school districts used the state funds for early learning education (i.e. full-day kindergarten). Law enforcement leaders say high-quality early childhood education helps to reduce crime and lower prison costs. Tom Corbett agreed when he was campaigning, but cut as governor.
• Charter schools were relatively unscathed by state cuts in the 2011/12 school year.
• There is less state funding for Pre-K to 12 Education now than there was BEFORE the federal stimulus.
• The Governor claims he’s increasing education funding to school districts. The reality is that funding for classroom education goes down across the board; just ask any school district.
• In 2008/09 a bi-partisan majority of legislators concluded that the state is underfunding public schools. Since then, Gov. Corbett cut nearly $1 billion in the current year and he wants to cut another $100 million next year.

School property taxes are going up across the state because of Governor Corbett’s nearly $1 billion in cuts to public schools.

• Property owners are paying more for education because the state isn’t meeting its share.
• 197 School districts (out of 500) received permission from PDE to raise taxes in 2012/13 without seeking voter approval.

Governor Corbett cares more about prison overcrowding than he does about classroom size.

• The governor backfilled lost stimulus funding in the Department of Corrections, but not for the Department of Education.
• In 2010/11, federal stimulus for DOC was $172,911,000; Governor Corbett added $209,286,000 in state funding to DOC in 2011/12.
• The average cost per pupil per year is approximately $14,000; the average cost per inmate per year is approximately $35,000.
• The governor plans to spend twice as much on prisons compared to higher education in his latest budget proposal.

Corbett’s education cuts resulted in 14,000 job cuts in our public schools.

• His policies actually cost the state tens of thousands of jobs for middle-class Pennsylvanians.

Corbett’s Student Achievement Education Block Grant proposal has nothing to do with students or achievement, it’s about pushing more funding responsibility away from the state and onto local property owners.

• Lumping the state’s legally required transportation and social security payments into the block grant distorts the funding picture.
• Eliminating the formula-funded transportation funding means that schools will be on their own to pay for increasing gas costs.
• Because the block grant method doesn’t account for increases in transportation and social security, the only place left for schools to make up the shortage in future years will be through cuts in classroom education and student programs. When a funding plan leaves schools without choices, there really is no flexibility.

If you would like to reach Governor Corbett directly to express your views on the education funding issue, you can call his office at (717) 787-2500.  For up-to-date information, visit my website at www.pahouse.com/Deasy, where you can also sign up to receive my Email Alerts.

District Office: 436 S Main Street, Suite 100, Pittsburgh, PA  15220 (412) 928-9514.