This bill is a sensible and responsible piece of
mandate relief.
Over the years, those who wanted to drive up education
spending found an effective formula for doing so – requiring that new money
be put toward gearing up new programs or expanding existing programs. As
programs grow larger, and there are more of them, political pressure pulls
funding along.
That is a problem today. In a prolonged tough economy,
taxpayers want off this treadmill, where costs constantly rise. For school
officials trying to figure out how to deal with substantial reductions in
the overall funding they expect to receive, a requirement tying new money to
new programs has no meaning and no constructive purpose. It is not fair to
force them to alter their approach, but keep the kind of fiscal
strait-jacket this requirement amounts to.
That would be a problem tomorrow. Schools are not
going to be flat-funded forever; education funding will rise again. When
that happens, most districts are going to be in the repair and restore mode,
rather than annually adding to the superstructure as occurred during the
Rendell years.
This bit of flexibility does not take away any right,
or undo any long-standing policy. It removes a requirement that has become
irrelevant in recessionary times.
The principle is pretty simple – if we want to see
spending controlled, we have to provide school officials with the leeway to
act to contain costs.
