GIVE US THE resources and we will have better outcomes.
That was the message yesterday from dozens of school principals as City Council continues to debate the Philadelphia School District’s request for $103 million in new funding.
In a letter delivered to Council and signed by more than 75 principals throughout the district, administrators described an “ongoing crisis in our schools” due to insufficient city and state funding.
“It is a crisis that affects the daily lives of children and whether or not they develop their skills and capacities,” the letter reads. “It sends a message to them about how much we value them. It is a crisis that causes there to be too few adults with too few tools and thus affects the ability of our teachers to teach and meet student needs.”
Many of the principals also testified in Council or met privately with elected officials to emphasize the need for more resources.
Meanwhile, with the introduction of three tax-raising bills yesterday, Council made clear that it will provide new funding to schools but not the $105 million that Mayor Nutter has proposed.
Council President Darrell Clarke and other Council members said school Superintendent William Hite needs to work more closely with them to devise ways to provide school services that don’t require new taxes.
They also bristled that Nutter proposed raising all the new school funding from property taxes while his administration allows more than $500 million in property taxes to go uncollected.
“There has to be a discussion about doing things a different way that does not have the first response to stick our hands in the taxpayers’ [pockets],” Clarke said.
If passed by Council and signed by Nutter later this month, the three bills would generate revenue that would fall far short of the $105 million Nutter proposed to raise from a 9.3 percent property-tax increase.
Various Council members estimated that the money raised by the trio of bills could range from $45 million to $84 million. The school district’s budget deficit is just under $85 million.
One bill would raise the use-and-occupancy tax levied on commercial real estate from 1.13 percent to 1.21 percent; another bill would increase property taxes from 0.6018 percent per $100 to 0.6317 percent; the final bill would increase the tax on off-street parking from 20 percent to 22.5 percent.
“I’m going to consider everything on the table to get to $84 million. If it means selling that shoe, I may do that, too,” Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. said, pointing to his left shoe.
Joe Grace, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, said his organization could support a property-tax increase of 4 percent but opposes raising the U&O tax, which Council raised three years ago by 18 percent.
“There are many commercial and residential taxpayers that pay the real-estate tax, and that’s the best way to share the sacrifice – or share the burden, if you will – to generate more revenue for schools,” Grace said.
The U&O tax is paid by about 12,800 taxpayers, compared to the 480,000 who pay property taxes, Grace noted.
Gov. Wolf has proposed an extra $159 million for the district, but Republicans are vigorously opposed to Wolf’s proposed tax increases.
Philadelphia Daily News – June 5, 2015 – Leer artículo en línea