Last month we wrote about the Auditor General’s findings on the $129 million surplus that occurred at the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Back across the Commonwealth, to the largest school district, and it turns out that the Philadelphia School District ended its fiscal year with an $88 million surplus.
To put that in perspective, Philadelphia’s 2013-14 total current expenditures was $2.4 billion, so an $88 million surplus would not make much of a dent in spending (as compared to Pittsburgh’s $129 million surplus where it spent $530 million a year based on 2013-14 data) but a surplus is a surplus.
The School District did get state approval to levy a cigarette tax of $2 per pack in 2014 and, according to the article announcing the surplus, received a piece of the local option sales tax, which is 2 percent in Philadelphia.
