From Education Voters of Pennsylvania (http://www.educationvoterspa.org/):
On November 7, 2017, Pennsylvania voters will find a proposed amendment to the PA Constitution, Joint Resolution 1, on their ballots. It reads:
Shall the Pennsylvania Constitution be amended to permit the General Assembly to enact legislation authorizing local taxing authorities to exclude from taxation up to 100 percent of the assessed value of each homestead property within a local taxing jurisdiction, rather than limit the exclusion to one-half of the median assessed value of all homestead property, which is the existing law?
Click HERE to read our information sheet on Joint Resolution 1.
This is a speculative amendment that presumably would allow the legislature to enact some type of property tax reduction at some point in the future. Joint Resolution 1 is more smoke and mirrors from a legislature that has demonstrated its unwillingness to address serious issues that impact Pennsylvanians.
Joint Resolution 1 does not put one more dollar into the school funding system to help fix PA’s school funding crisis.
Joint Resolution 1 does not specify where revenue to replace lost property taxes might come from.
Joint Resolution 1 does not guarantee any property tax reductions for homestead owners.
Click HERE to share Ed Voters’ statement about Joint Resolution 1 on Facebook.
Pennsylvanians cannot afford for lawmakers to continue kicking the can down the road. We need them to commit to addressing PA’s school funding crisis by significantly increasing state funding for public schools. We need them to provide relief to homeowners who are struggling to pay their property taxes. We need them to rein in skyrocketing cyber school costs, which continue to drive up property taxes because PA’s broken charter school law mandates that taxpayers pay a premium for students to attend failing commercial cyber charter schools, which have a 48% graduation rate.
The school funding system that is inadequate and inequitable today will be just as inadequate and inequitable if this resolution passes.
Speaking of inadequate and inequitable school funding systems, Jennifer Clarke, the Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Center, recently appeared on Focus on Education, where she articulately lays out everything you would ever want to know about the school funding lawsuit. I’m on the show, too, talking about the importance of advocacy in pressuring the state legislature to fix this broken system.
Click HERE to watch the video of Focus on Education.
Also, still no revenue package from the legislature to pay for the state budget. Still no shale tax. Still no funding for Pitt, Penn, Temple, or Lincoln Universities or for the Penn State agriculture programs. Lawmakers were off again this week. That made it difficult for them to address the budget they have left unfinished.
Thank you for your continued support of public education. Lawmakers return to Harrisburg on Monday. We will keep you in the loop about what they are up to.
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