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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE Statement by Senate Appropriations Chairman Gib Armstrong on State Education FundingThe dire warnings and made-up numbers issued by the state Education Department yesterday are irresponsible and indefensible. State education officials need to climb down from their ivory tower and learn a little something about economic reality. It is impossible to deal with the drop-off in state revenues, hold the line on state taxes, meet all the mandated costs across other state responsibilities, and still give an outsized increase to education. The math does not work. Governor Rendell's proposed 6% increase for basic education was an arbitrary number. It was presented in February with good intentions, but in June there is no longer sufficient money to pay for it. Based on what has been said during news conferences and constituent visits in recent weeks, there is probably not a program in the state budget where the advocates are happy with the proposed funding. It is doubtful there is much support for cutting everything else to sustain this big increase for education. If the Rainy Day Fund is raided now to pay for the high level of spending the Administration is insisting on, how will the money be found next year to pay for a comparable increase atop it, when nearly every economic forecast projects the revenue problem to be much worse? The public does not believe there is a magical spending number that guarantees academic achievement, nor do they believe that a still substantial 3.5% increase will bring academic progress to a crashing halt. Only in the fantasy world of government figuring would someone call a 3.5% increase "cut and gut." There is one other statistic that plays into this debate. State education spending has gone up 40% during the Rendell years, with bipartisan legislative support. Hard to make a convincing case that school districts are being starved of state funding. Individuals, families, businesses, non-profit institutions, and the rest are tightening their budgets and controlling their expenses because of the troubled economy. They expect state government to do the same thing. They do not want us to compound the problem by driving up spending when revenues are going in the other direction.
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