The House approved a plan Wednesday to give local school boards more flexibility to comply with the spending caps of Act 46.
The debate over the spending caps has consumed the work of the House and Senate Education committees for the first four weeks of the session.
The caps are in place for two years and are designed to control spending until school district consolidation efforts are fully implemented.
The House and Senate are dealing with this issue very differently and the two chambers face a major challenge if they are to succeed in finding a compromise over the next few days.
House Education chairman David Sharpe says the caps need to be adjusted because of rising health care costs.
“Particularly with regard to a 7.9 percent increase in health care premiums that is going to be imposed on school districts across the state,” said Sharpe.
The House bill -- passed 91-52 -- increases local caps by roughly 1 percent. It also reduces penalties for towns that exceed their caps.
Stannard Rep. Chip Troiano proposed repealing the caps altogether. He argued that spending decisions should be made locally, not by the state.
"That's where it should come from, from our communities,” Troiano says. “From the people who sit at these school board meetings, who listen to residents and listen to schools boards, listen to principals and listen to superintendents. Those are the people who make the decisions."
Rep. Sharpe strongly disagreed.
"Repealing this provision entirely out of Act 46 is walking away from our responsibility to our taxpayers,” Sharpe said.
The House overwhelming rejected the repeal amendment. That's important because the Senate has already voted to repeal the caps.
"That's where it should come from, from our communities, from the people who sit at these school board meetings, who listen to residents and listen to schools boards, listen to principals and listen to superintendents. Those are the people who make the decisions." — Stannard Rep. Chip Troiano
Senate Education chairwoman Ann Cummings says the new House bill makes a bad situation even worse. That's why she favors repeal.
"It's a shot in the dark,” says Cummings. “We don't know who's going to get hit and I think it's better to say look we tried, we failed, we're going back to square one. And spend the time we're spending on this finding ways to curb the cost of education."
Legislative leaders would like to reach a compromise by the end of the week.
While it will be difficult to find that compromise, both the House and Senate know that a failure to find a solution means that the original spending caps will remain in place. That's an outcome neither chamber wants to see happen.
