Blue Pennsylvania: The Uniformity Clause, Hold Harmless, and a Simple Action that You Can Take to Make Pennsylvania a Better Place

The cold and the rain could not dampen the spirit this past Saturday for those of us who decided to brave the elements and march down Market Street in Philadelphia.  No doubt the mood was similar in Allentown, Doylestown, and West Chester.  Those good vibes extended to our contingent of volunteers who distributed our flyers about the judicial retention questions on the ballot in November, and were greeted with gratitude, questions, and discussions about the topic.

On Sunday, POWER Interfaith hosted an event for educational funding at St. Martins in the Fields in Chestnut Hill.  State Reps Andre Carroll and Tarik Khan were joined by State Senators Art Haywood and Sharif Street to speak about the importance of state funding for under-resourced districts – like Philadelphia – this year, when the threat of withholding federal money from public education is becoming more of a reality.

Pennsylvania presents a rather contradictory mix of philosophies when it comes to the budget.  On the one hand, there is the uniformity clause in the Pennsylvania Constitution that states that “All taxes shall be uniform…” which means that we can’t have anything approaching a graduated income tax in the state, because, God forbid, that would discriminate against the rich.

Pennsylvania, however, does have a mechanism that allows the legislature to discriminate against the poor.  It is known by the ironic term “Hold Harmless”, and was introduced in a funding bill in 1992.  The provision promised that each district would receive at least as much basic education funding as the year before, allowing for inflation. 

Whereas it would make sense for “Hold Harmless” to apply to money per student; in practice, the term applies to money per district.  Here is how “Hold Harmless” works.  Imagine two school districts.  Each has four students.

A   B   C   D

E   F   G   H

Each district gets $100 to teach those students. 

One year later, however, two students from one school district leave to go to the other district.

A    B

C   D   E   F   G   H

Both districts would still get $100 (as per Hold Harmless), but the first district would have twice as much money to spend on its student body, and the second district would struggle to make ends meet, due to having less money per student.  Many districts in the state with growing student populations, such as Philadelphia, Chester-Upland, Allentown, Pottstown, and Reading, have found themselves in this latter group. 

So while Pennsylvania’s government prohibits us from discriminating against the rich, it has no qualms about discriminating against the poor.  But we are clawing our way back.  If you’ve been reading these emails, you know about the Commonwealth Court decision, the Basic Education Commission recommendations, last year’s budget, and Governor Shapiro’s education budget for this year.  Now we are ready to begin our advocacy for this budget.  The Pennsylvania Policy Center has a page where you can write to your legislators directly to ask them to support Governor Shapiro’s education budget for this year.  It does not matter where you live, just as long as you are a resident of Pennsylvania.  It takes a few seconds if you use the generic language, but you can personalize it, and if you have a little extra time, that would be a good thing to do.  When you are done, get others to do the same.  You can access that page here. 

Also, if you have completed our form, we will be contacting you soon to involve school boards in the fight for fair funding.  You can access that form here.

Thanks,

Coleman