Menu
Tax Notes logo

Pennsylvania Lawmaker Floats Tax Cut to Offset School Tuition

Posted on July 30, 2020

Proposed Pennsylvania legislation would give property tax discounts to parents who choose to pay for private schooling because they disagree with their school’s COVID-19 mitigation policies.

Rep. Russ Diamond (R) on July 23 published a sponsorship memorandum and corresponding legislative language for the Emergency Real Property Tax Relief Act.

Under the bill, residents who pay tuition and fees to an "alternate public or nonpublic school" during academic school years in which the state's COVID-19 "disaster emergency is in effect" could apply for a property tax discount. The discount could not exceed 100 percent of the resident's real property liability, the memo said.

“Whether [a school's] mitigation plans are — in a parent’s opinion — too strong or too mild, we need to make every effort to allow them to seek out educational opportunities that fit their needs,” Diamond wrote.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education released guidance on reopening in-person instruction at the state’s 500 school districts at the end of August. However, the guidance has left much to be desired for state educational associations, who have asked for more concrete rules.

“Most of what has been issued are suggestions without specificity, leaving difficult decisions for school leaders who are not public health experts,” the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators wrote in a July newsletter. “The sand has been constantly shifting beneath the feet of school officials as information about and guidance concerning the Coronavirus continues to change. As a result, the public health situation could look much different in late August than it does now, causing districts to suddenly shift their reopening plans and create tremendous disruption to communities and families.”

School boards will need to formulate and vote on a plan to reopen. On July 28, the Philadelphia school district released plans to offer remote learning from September 2 through November 17 and then transition into a hybrid learning model, with in-person instruction two days a week and online instruction three days a week.

The shift to online education is expected to cost school districts over $200 million in the coming year, according to the Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA). The increase in costs comes as schools are also seeing a local revenue shortfall of approximately $1 billion.

Pennsylvania school districts are already responsible for paying tuition for students that choose to attend a charter school. The amount they pay is equivalent to their per-pupil spending. The local revenue proportion was “substantially more” than in the 13 other states that do the same, according to a 2017 analysis from the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee.

School districts paid more than $2 billion in charter school tuition in fiscal 2019, according to a June 19 press release from the PSBA. Nearly 300 school boards have adopted resolutions calling for charter funding reform.

Diamond did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Copy RID