Wednesday, January 31, 2007
A Referendum PA Voters Should Have
This May, voters in Pennsylvania will be asked to “pick their poison”: do they want to trade a higher school earned income tax or a personal income tax for school property tax relief? How the voter chooses depends on how the tax on income would hit them versus the amount of a property tax cut. Along with the tax shift question, schools would have to control spending from exceeding an annual index, but with plenty of exceptions built in for critical issues like health benefits for teachers, the power of referendum appears severely hamstrung.
In the rust belt state of Michigan, voters also got to have a say on public education recently. The results were dramatic and not well received by the educational establishment. Proposal 5 was defeated by a resounding margin of 62-38%. The proposal would have mandated annual funding increases for education.
Observers in Michigan have viewed the defeat as a statement on “the cost of education pensions”. There is talk now that the Michigan legislature might begin discussion of mandating newly-hired teachers be covered by a defined contribution pension plan instead of the standard, yet slowly disappearing, defined benefit plan.
How nice if the voters in this Commonwealth could have voted on a similar question or if they would have been given a say in the pension enhancements granted earlier in the decade. That bill will start coming due for school districts in five years. Instead, PA taxpayers have a tax shift to contemplate and no definitive control over education spending.
In the rust belt state of Michigan, voters also got to have a say on public education recently. The results were dramatic and not well received by the educational establishment. Proposal 5 was defeated by a resounding margin of 62-38%. The proposal would have mandated annual funding increases for education.
Observers in Michigan have viewed the defeat as a statement on “the cost of education pensions”. There is talk now that the Michigan legislature might begin discussion of mandating newly-hired teachers be covered by a defined contribution pension plan instead of the standard, yet slowly disappearing, defined benefit plan.
How nice if the voters in this Commonwealth could have voted on a similar question or if they would have been given a say in the pension enhancements granted earlier in the decade. That bill will start coming due for school districts in five years. Instead, PA taxpayers have a tax shift to contemplate and no definitive control over education spending.
