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Chester County Press

Uncle Irvin: General Assembly, school boards fail fiscally

04/18/2017 01:33PM ● By Richard Gaw
By Uncle Irvin

By June 30, the General Assembly and Gov. Tom Wolf should have finished up the 2017-2018 budget. Likewise, school boards must finish up their 2017-2018 school budgets by that time.
In all likelihood, the state budget -- which contains the public school education fund -- will not be finished. The state is $3 billion short from the 2016-2017 budget. So how can school boards pass a balanced budget without knowing the real numbers for public school subsidies?
School boards are used to doing this process backwards because the state legislature rarely, if ever, finishes up by June 30.
While the state arguably spends too little on public education, local school boards are made up of local volunteers coerced by militant teachers' unions, greedy administrators, and parents who want a private school education for their kids. Boards spend entirely too much money with virtually no cost-cutting. The bottom line is the same. School property taxes are essentially bankrupting the middle class and senior citizens.
In fact, many township supervisors who see the real need for local police abandon the concept because they would be forced to jack up property tax millage rates.
The wizards are making big talk in Washington, D.C. about diverting federal spending from domestic to defense spending, while eliminating the federal tax exemption for state income and all property taxes! And there is little we can do about it but cry.

(Uncle Irvin's column is his opinion only, and is not a news story.)