The PSEA team discusses the high and low points of Gov. Josh Shapiro's Feb. 6 budget address for 2024-25. PSEA President Aaron Chapin, Vice President Jeff Ney, and Treasurer Rachael West are joined by PSEA Government Relations experts Dan Wiedemer and Kelli Thompson to hash over the details of what this budget means for PSEA members.
The PSEA team discusses the high and low points of Gov. Josh Shapiro's Feb. 6 budget address for 2024-25. PSEA President Aaron Chapin, Vice President Jeff Ney, and Treasurer Rachael West are joined by PSEA Government Relations experts Dan Wiedemer and Kelli Thompson to hash over the details of what this budget means for PSEA members.
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Learn more and watch for upcoming episodes at psea.org/podcast.
Voiceover (00:02):
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you, from cutting-edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions. If it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin (00:24):
Hello and welcome to Duty Free Lunch. I am PSEA President, Aaron Chapin, and I'm here today with Vice President, Jeff Ney.
Jeff Ney (00:34):
Hi Aaron.
Aaron Chapin (00:35):
How you doing?
Jeff Ney (00:35):
Good.
Aaron Chapin (00:36):
And we also have Treasurer, Rachael West. Hello, Treasurer West.
Rachael West (00:40):
Hello, president and vice president.
Aaron Chapin (00:42):
How are you doing today?
Rachael West (00:42):
I'm great. How are you?
Aaron Chapin (00:44):
I'm doing fantastic, especially with our very special, special guests that we have.
Jeff Ney (00:49):
They are very special.
Aaron Chapin (00:50):
Well, we'll get to that in a second, but don't jump the gun.
Jeff Ney (00:54):
All right.
Aaron Chapin (00:55):
One other thing, I was thinking about this as we were getting ready for this episode, I was thinking this podcast is great because we get to hear what our members are doing for their students and our association, and we also get to hear about some of the great services that PSEA provides, but it also gives us an opportunity to cover important events in real time that affect our association, our schools and students. And today's special episode, we'll be discussing what we just heard from Governor Josh Shapiro's latest budget address.
Jeff Ney (01:26):
Mm.
Aaron Chapin (01:27):
So to help us sort through all of this, because it's immense, we've got a couple of our colleagues here from PSEA who are experts on these matters. We've got Director of PSEA Government Relations, Dan Wiedemer. Dan, welcome back.
Dan Wiedemer (01:42):
I am back and better than ever.
Aaron Chapin (01:44):
Well, we'll see about that.
Dan Wiedemer (01:45):
Thrilled to be here.
Aaron Chapin (01:46):
We'll see what the feedback is from our listeners.
Dan Wiedemer (01:48):
What the reviews say.
Aaron Chapin (01:49):
But even better, we've got Assistant Director of Government Relations, Kelli Thompson. Hello, Kelli.
Kelli Thompson (01:54):
Hello, President Chapin. Thanks for having me.
Aaron Chapin (01:56):
Well, we knew Dan couldn't come back again this soon without bringing a special guest, and a lot of our members really love the work that you do, so thank you for being here. And Dan, happy birthday.
Dan Wiedemer (02:07):
I appreciate that and I'm thrilled that Kelli is here to keep me in line.
Aaron Chapin (02:11):
Well, that was part of the requirement. So we've got a lot of questions because it was a very long budget address, as we all know-
Dan Wiedemer (02:20):
Very long.
Aaron Chapin (02:21):
Very long, but it was very deep and lots of information. So let's get into it. As we said, we just listened to Governor Shapiro yesterday, lay out his budget proposal for the next fiscal year. There's a lot in there, Dan. Any surprises in there for you and maybe for Kelli as well?
Dan Wiedemer (02:41):
You know, for me, it's just where we are with public education funding in the Commonwealth right now. It wasn't that long ago when we were digging out from the whole of the billion dollar cut that Tom Corbett put us in. That was two governors ago. Our previous governor, Tom Wolf, who many people would say is maybe the most pro-public education governor in Pennsylvania history, he scraped and he fought for every 10 or 20 or $50 million that he could get. And here we are, because of the work of PSEA and our allies, talking about a $1.8 billion package. And let's give credit where credit is due, that is a very bold approach by Governor Shapiro.
Aaron Chapin (03:31):
Absolutely. Kelli?
Kelli Thompson (03:32):
I think the most surprising thing to me that the governor talked about yesterday was a little bit more granular. It was actually the inclusion of the standard cyber chartered tuition payment of $8,000 per student. I think we all anticipated that the governor would propose a substantial increase in basic education funding because of the work of the Basic Education Funding Commission in the past six months. But we had never really heard him speak very publicly about his concerns about cyber chartered tuition and how it compares to brick and mortar charter schools. And of course, we know that that tuition payment is the same as what was proposed in House Bill 1422 that was sponsored by Representative Joe Ciresi last summer and passed the House last July. So how cyber charter funding fits into the fiscal year '24-'25 budget deliberations is going to be a really interesting topic heading into this budget cycle.
Aaron Chapin (04:39):
And definitely there was a great reaction in the rotunda when the address was given.
Kelli Thompson (04:46):
Yeah.
Aaron Chapin (04:46):
It was something that a lot-
Kelli Thompson (04:47):
Excitement.
Aaron Chapin (04:47):
... of [inaudible 00:04:49] a lot of our legislators seemed to react really well to that, I think on both sides of the aisle.
Jeff Ney (04:53):
It was nice, Aaron, that you were able to be in the rotunda with the invitation from the governor to see that address and hear that. But Kelli, speaking of the basic education funding, and I know Dan said 1.8, but $1.1 billion is supposed to go in the governor's proposal to the increase in the basic ed funding. So this obviously significant increase, in fact, the most we've ever seen proposed by a governor. And it's different than what we've seen in the past in some very important ways, which we're going to get into with some of our other questions. And that's all great news, but let's talk about how this budget will address some real pressing issues like last February's ruling in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court that our state's school funding system is unconstitutional. Would one of you guys want to handle that one?
Kelli Thompson (05:40):
So I think this is a great question to start, especially today, since today is the one-year anniversary of the historic Commonwealth Court Ruling by Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer and Judge Jubelirer made two findings: that the legislature hasn't fulfilled their obligations under the education clause of the Constitution and that the funding disparities that students are experiencing in low wealth districts, those students are being deprived equal protection under the law. So really when you look at the Governor's basic education funding proposal, it responds directly to those two elements. You're looking at adequacy in school funding. Do schools have enough funding in order to reach academic success? And looking at districts in general in terms of local tax equity, are we being fair to taxpayers and students in those districts as well?
(06:40)
And those are both elements that are in the Governor's basic education funding proposal. And he goes a step forward and he proposes not only to address adequacy and equity, but then for all districts in the state to make sure that there's an inflationary increase of $200 million. So well done.
Rachael West (06:59):
In following up about that Commonwealth Court decision, the PA Basic Education Funding Commission issued a report on January 11th calling for massive increases in public school funding over the next seven years. It appears that Governor Shapiro's proposal follows many of those recommendations. Do you want to touch on any more specifics about what was covered there?
Dan Wiedemer (07:21):
So this gets us to year one. So the governor's proposal would implement year one of those recommendations, and it is a fantastic start. As Kelli mentioned, we're talking about $872 million dollars in adequacy, and the tax supplement funding, 200 million on top of that in the inflation for basic education funding, 50 million in special, 50 million in school safety, 300 million in school repairs. So there is really terrific work done in this budget that is going to do a lot of good for the students and parents and educators of this Commonwealth. But it is important for us to remember it's a start. It is a start. The amount that we need to do is this times seven? Times seven.
Kelli Thompson (08:11):
Yeah, I mean the total amount that the Basic Education Funding Commission called for in terms of adequacy and local tax equity was over $6 billion in reality and then you add 300 million a year for seven years so that's another 2.1 billion for school infrastructure. So again, like Dan said, it's year one. We need to see this sustained effort-
Aaron Chapin (08:39):
Yeah.
Kelli Thompson (08:39):
... not only this year, but moving forward.
Aaron Chapin (08:41):
That'll be the big challenge. And I'd be remiss if we didn't express to our listeners how involved PSEA was with this whole commission and the report. And many of our listeners don't know that, our government relations team, especially with Kelli, she had so much to do, but we had people from research that were involved. We had so many of our staff here at PSEA involved in guiding this process through obviously in getting me prepared for testimony, but just for the players involved on the government side, you had so much to do with that. So this must be very rewarding to see what the governor brought forward yesterday and all the work that led up to that.
Kelli Thompson (09:25):
It's very rewarding when you think about how many of the recommendations that you presented to the Basic Education Funding Commission back in November, how many of them are reflected-
Aaron Chapin (09:34):
Yeah.
Kelli Thompson (09:35):
... in some form in the governor's budget? It's very gratifying.
Aaron Chapin (09:40):
Yeah. Well, and one of those is about infrastructure issues in our schools. A lot of our listeners can tell, and we talk with presidents, we talk with members from across the Commonwealth and they talk about the issues with their schools falling apart, not being warm enough, not being cool enough. How was infrastructure addressed in the budget proposal by the governor?
Dan Wiedemer (10:04):
So as you mentioned, President Chapin, we have advocated for this aggressively. PSEA has advocated aggressively for a safe place for students to learn, for educators to work. And the condition of some of our school buildings, as you all know, and as the listeners know, is really shocking. I mean it's 2024 and we are still talking about lead in drinking water, asbestos in building... in fact, the second most likely profession to have mesothelioma is teachers.
Aaron Chapin (10:38):
Mm, wow.
Dan Wiedemer (10:39):
Because of the amount of asbestos in the buildings. So the $300 million that the governor has proposed, wonderful first step.
Aaron Chapin (10:46):
Yep.
Dan Wiedemer (10:47):
But a recurring theme of all of this does not get us as far as we need to go.
Aaron Chapin (10:52):
I completely agree. I mean, Jeff, you've been working on this the last few months.
Jeff Ney (10:57):
Yeah, it's absolutely surprising to hear the stories coming from our members where they're bringing in bottles of water because the kids can't even use the drinking fountains in some of our schools. And like Dan said, I mean in a day and age where all of this access is readily available, why we are still dealing with lead in our drinking water in our schools that are going to affect the students that are in there much more than adults is just heartbreaking.
Rachael West (11:28):
So we talk a lot about the pipeline issue here and ways to get more educators into the field. And as our members know, PSEA was instrumental in getting a student teacher stipend approved in December. The governor's budget approves another five million for that program, and we know it will be a little bit before we see that program fully up and running, but how do you think this extra money will help address our educator pipeline issues and our school staffing shortages?
Dan Wiedemer (11:56):
Well, I'm going to let Kelli talk about this mostly because she's done a lot of work on it, and it is such an amazing policy win for this organization. But it's worth noting before she shares the details with you, just how unfair it is to expect student teachers to pay their tuition, to work in an internship for free and to be prevented from receiving any sort of outside income, working a second job. It's not only unfair, it makes it impossible for a certain segment of society to ever become educators because if you're working your way through school, if you're a non-traditional student, if you're a parent, you've got to pay your bills. And it makes it impossible for those folks to reach the profession, that's why Kelli, I think your work on this was just so important.
Kelli Thompson (12:42):
Well, yeah. I mean, it was really the work of our student PSEA members-
Aaron Chapin (12:47):
Yeah.
Kelli Thompson (12:47):
... who pushed this to the forefront of PSEA's Public Policy Agenda last year and made policy makers aware of how the student teacher experience is such a barrier for people that are seeking to come into the profession. So with that said, I think we're very happy to see that the governor increased the amount of money invested in the student teacher stipend that's going to be operated by FIA, and FIA is currently getting that program up and running.
Aaron Chapin (13:27):
Yeah.
Kelli Thompson (13:27):
We do expect there to be applications available for the fall semester of 2024 coming later this spring, probably at the end of March, beginning of April. The concern is, is will there be enough money invested in the program to satisfy all of the demand? And that remains a concern of mine and this entire organization. So in this current year's budget, there was $10 million. Yesterday, the governor proposed a total of another $15 million.
Aaron Chapin (14:11):
Yeah.
Kelli Thompson (14:11):
So we would have $25 million dollars going into the fall semester. When you look at the Instructional 1 certificates that are issued by the Department of Education, if we do some quick back of the envelope math, there were over 4,200 Instructional 1 certs issued in '21-'22. So that means we would need 42 million, at least-
Aaron Chapin (14:42):
Wow.
Kelli Thompson (14:43):
... just to cover the $10,000 stipend for the student educators, right? That's before you get to the $5,000 bonus for those student teachers who are going to go into high shortage districts. That's before you get to the $2,500 supplement for the cooperating teachers to oversee their student teachers. So this is, I don't want to diminish what the governor proposed yesterday, it's a really good next step, but we need to show demand in order to sustain the program in the long term and in order to get it fully funded.
Rachael West (15:24):
So it sounds like this is kind of the same thing as almost everything else we said. It's a great first step.
Kelli Thompson (15:30):
Yep.
Rachael West (15:30):
But we're going to need to see the continued passion behind these steps.
Aaron Chapin (15:36):
Yeah.
Kelli Thompson (15:37):
And I think what we'll see here this spring is hopefully FIA provide numbers for the number of applicants ahead of the finalization of the state budget. So legislators on the Hill will have a clear understanding of what the demand is right away.
Aaron Chapin (15:58):
So obviously then we've got some work to do as the spring goes on and they start to really get into these talks and we'll try to advocate on behalf of our aspiring educators. And again, for our listeners, we'll have two of our student leaders in.
Jeff Ney (16:12):
Yeah.
Aaron Chapin (16:12):
We recorded an episode not that long ago, and we'll be having that released. Really great information. And again, they're very appreciative of the work, but we are appreciative of everything that they did to make that happen as well.
Jeff Ney (16:24):
Yeah, I'm glad you gave them a shout out right at the beginning of your answer there, because yeah, the student PSEA did a great job in advocating for that.
Kelli Thompson (16:33):
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Ney (16:34):
So we also heard the governor, again, propose that legislature focus on scholarships. I don't even know why I'm doing air quotes on a podcast, but I'm doing that anyway.
Aaron Chapin (16:42):
Okay.
Jeff Ney (16:43):
So scholarships for religious and private schools while not allocating actual funding for it. He gave them the homework assignment and said, "Here you guys, figure it out." This is an issue that PSEA strongly opposes. So can you guys talk a little bit about the politics of the legislator and what you would expect might happen there now that they've been asked to address that?
Dan Wiedemer (17:05):
Yeah, this is a tough one. Look, I assume if anybody is, the folks who are listening to this podcast know what's going on in the world of government, right? There's a reason that they are here. So I think we can probably skip right to the inside baseball and just say that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and the pro-public education majority there wants to solve the constitutionally underfunded school crisis that we face. They want more money for schools. Conversely, the Senate wants school vouchers. Well let me back up. The people who fund the Senate Republicans want school vouchers. Governor Shapiro is somewhere in the middle. So what the governor talked about is being open to giving certain students in certain communities the ability to receive a past scholarship, and part of that could go to tuition for private schools, for religious schools.
(18:08)
Now, we are a member-driven organization so it's not up to me, it's not up to Kelli to say what's worth it and what's not worth it as part of these deals, but as far as we have heard from you all, this isn't a deal that PSEA is... We are not in the business of selling our souls so that legislators do the bare minimum of meeting their constitutional requirements to fund public education. So we're going to fight, and we have stopped these programs for more than 30 years, and we're going to fight to stop them again.
Aaron Chapin (18:39):
Kelli?
Dan Wiedemer (18:40):
Kelli. Yeah.
Aaron Chapin (18:40):
Oh, it's speechless.
Kelli Thompson (18:45):
Yeah, and that doesn't happen that often does it?
Aaron Chapin (18:47):
No, it doesn't.
Kelli Thompson (18:47):
It doesn't.
Aaron Chapin (18:47):
No, no. Rare.
Kelli Thompson (18:50):
Yeah. I mean, I think we all anticipated what the governor was going to say so we weren't surprised. It's just always truly stunning to me when there are conversations about past scholarships, vouchers, whatever it's called, that there isn't accountability attached to those programs by the people who demand accountability from public schools. So to me, it's just a real example of this public policy hypocrisy that befalls public education every time in every debate around scholarships, vouchers, education savings accounts, whatever.
Aaron Chapin (19:39):
Well said, and it would seem to many of us, not just in this room, but across the state and our schools, that they would love an opportunity to see this investment be made and see what comes forth, and then reassess the landscape, see if scholarships are something that are needed at that point. But we need to let this money, after decades of neglect and not following the Constitution, we need to invest that money and see how it works out and then see where we go. But it looks like scholarships are going to be a hot topic this spring.
Dan Wiedemer (20:15):
Well-
Jeff Ney (20:15):
I'm sorry, Dan, go ahead.
Dan Wiedemer (20:17):
... this is a perfect opportunity for us also just to briefly touch on the very false narrative around this idea that we have failing schools in Pennsylvania. We do not. The correlations, the test data, it's all 100% clear. Schools that are in communities that are struggling, where there's high rates of poverty, where there's high rates of crime, we're seeing challenges. There are absolutely proven ways that we can address those challenges whereas school vouchers for decades have proven to be a complete policy failure.
Aaron Chapin (20:50):
Yeah, absolutely. And we're going to obviously have more discussions about it as the spring plays out, and we'll get to June and we'll see what goes on. But Jeff, it's pop quiz time.
Jeff Ney (21:01):
Oh, I love the pop quiz time.
Aaron Chapin (21:02):
Pop quiz time.
Jeff Ney (21:02):
So Kelli, you mentioned that the government just passed the budget just recently for this year.
Kelli Thompson (21:09):
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Ney (21:09):
Now the rules are that they have to have the budget completed by June 30th. So your quiz question is what do you think the chances are them getting the budget done by June 30th? What do you think, Kel?
Kelli Thompson (21:23):
I'm not taking that bet.
Aaron Chapin (21:24):
Come on.
Kelli Thompson (21:25):
No way.
Aaron Chapin (21:25):
You got to make a decision. What are you doing?
Kelli Thompson (21:28):
I think it's going to be July. I don't think, I realize it's an election year, and people are going to want to get back to their districts and campaign and run on more money for public schools, but at the end of the day, the political dynamics and the general assembly, I just don't think will lend itself. They're too far apart in where each majority caucus wants to go.
Jeff Ney (21:55):
Dan, you going to be the optimist?
Dan Wiedemer (21:58):
No. Do we have... If I could get a math teacher to explain to me, if odds can be less than zero.
Jeff Ney (22:04):
No.
Dan Wiedemer (22:04):
That would be terrific. They can't? Okay. Zero 0% by June 30th.
Aaron Chapin (22:08):
Oh, wow. What a great way to end the podcast.
Jeff Ney (22:12):
Rays of sunshine.
Aaron Chapin (22:13):
Awesome. Well, unfortunately, as is always the case it seems, we are all out of time. Our guests today has been PSEA Director of Government Relations, Dan Wiedemer, and Assistant Director of Government Relations, Kelli Thompson. Thank you both for joining us and trying to make a little sense of the budget that is being proposed. We really appreciate you being here.
Dan Wiedemer (22:35):
Thanks for having us.
Kelli Thompson (22:35):
Yeah.
Aaron Chapin (22:35):
Absolutely.
Kelli Thompson (22:36):
Can't wait to come back.
Aaron Chapin (22:37):
Oh, wow.
Jeff Ney (22:38):
She's making it into the chart.
Aaron Chapin (22:39):
I know she is. Well...
Dan Wiedemer (22:41):
Let's see what the ratings are.
Kelli Thompson (22:42):
Okay. Okay. Fair enough.
Aaron Chapin (22:45):
Thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in again. Do you have some feedback for us? Maybe you have a question. Of course, maybe we'll take some suggestions on future podcasts, maybe suggest a topic, or maybe you want advice from our vice president.
Jeff Ney (22:58):
Yeah, I'm still waiting for my first one.
Aaron Chapin (23:00):
Well, we're still waiting for those, but you can send it to our email address podcast@psea.org. Once again, I'm Aaron Chapin.
Jeff Ney (23:08):
And I'm Jeff Ney.
Rachael West (23:09):
And I'm Rachael West.
Aaron Chapin (23:10):
And you have been listening to Duty Free Lunch. Bye for now.
Voiceover (23:17):
You've been listening to duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psa.org/podcast to learn more, and don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.