The Superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) testified to the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission yesterday across the Commonwealth in Lancaster. The written transcript of the Superintendent’s testimony is not yet available on the Commission’s website, so all that exists at the time is the news coverage here in Pittsburgh and an article from Lancaster.
Between those two articles lies some confusion: in the Pittsburgh article the Superintendent states that there needs to be an inclusion of the “hold harmless” provision so that even if a district’s enrollment falls it does not lose funding ( “…losing the ‘hold harmless’ provision would likely mean [Pittsburgh] would not be the only district which would be in the distressed school status in short order despite our best efforts to avoid it”) but in Lancaster the Superintendent seemed to be in favor of a formula that might mean a loss of students means a loss of funding (“As the superintendent of a school district with declining enrollment, please know how hard it is for me to say this, but a formula has to be based on enrollment”). Only when the testimony gets posted will it become clearer.
One thing the Superintendent did mention in the Pittsburgh article was that “For us on the ground in Pittsburgh, we did get less revenue than before, a lot less. How and why does not make much difference to us; the impact is the same.” Of course this gets back to the whole Federal stimulus/state funding amount that has been a huge issue in Pennsylvania.
Here is what the state’s Department of Education Summaries of Annual Financial Data shows for Pittsburgh Public Schools in the fiscal years 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, and 2012-13 (in millions):
Total Local Revenue: $280.1, $285.5, $283.4, $284.8
Total State Revenue: $245,1, $$234.9, $239.9, $244.0
Total Federal Revenue: $69.8, $115,0, $66.3, $66.6
Seems clear from the data that the biggest decline in funding came in Federal money from 2010-11 to 2011-12, a $49 million difference. Due to enrollment falling (27,922 in 2009-10 to 26,463 in 2012-13) the total revenue per pupil actually rose from $21,309 to $22,476.
