School District's budget request gets a skeptical hearing from Council

The Philadelphia School District wants $103 million more from City Council.

On Tuesday, Council made it clear: It is not thrilled with the request, and the cash won't come easily after several years of increases for a district in crisis.

In a long, often tense hearing, Council members expressed skepticism on topics ranging from the district's governance structure to the instruction in cursive handwriting.

Hardly mentioned was the proposed method of raising the money the schools want: a property-tax increase.

"So you want all of the money, all of the time, basically," Council President Darrell L. Clarke said.

"It feels like you can't get a straight answer on some of these very important questions," Councilwoman Cindy Bass said.

"One of the problems I have is a lack of creativity in finding out where the money is going to come from," Councilman David Oh said.

Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. has asked for $103 million in new, recurring revenue from the city and $206 million from the state for his 2015-16 budget. Mayor Nutter has proposed a tax increase to net the district $105 million - an unpopular idea on Council.

For several years, and after a steep cut in state aid to Philadelphia schools, the district has relied on the city to come up with more money just to open schools on time. At the same time, it has closed dozens of buildings, slashed administrative costs, and laid off staff to make ends meet.

With Gov. Wolf proposing $159 million in additional money for Philadelphia schools, the district is in better shape going into next year, but Hite said he badly needed more money to add teachers, counselors, nurses, Advanced Placement classes, and technology.

The district's proposed budget for next year is $2.9 billion.

"We cannot and should not ask our schools to give up anything more," School Reform Commission Chairwoman Marjorie Neff told Council. "To put it simply, there is nothing left to cut."

But Council was clearly skeptical about how the additional $324 million it had advanced in the last four years had been spent. Clarke asked for a detailed accounting of that money and said the answers the district provided were "basically nothing."

District officials "operate in this silo," Clarke said after the hearing. "Nobody's supposed to have any information. Nobody's supposed to ask any questions."

Hite and the district's chief financial officer, Matthew Stanski, said they had tried to be more transparent and would continue to do so. They also noted that another of Clarke's concerns - the state's share of district funding - was out of their hands.

Clarke also suggested that any more money given to the school system have strings attached. He expressed concern at the district's move to possibly outsource school nurses in particular.

He and others made it clear they do not like the SRC as a governance model.

"I believe one of the problems of the School District is poor management," Oh said. He has introduced legislation to shape a school board should the SRC be abolished. At present, only an SRC vote can achieve that.

Called to address the governance question, Commissioner Bill Green, a former City Council member who once shared Council's concerns about transparency, said the problem was not the SRC but the district's lack of taxing authority.

Now, it must essentially beg for "an allowance" from the city and state every year, Green said.

"As long as the district doesn't control its revenue, it really has a governance problem," Green said.

Council members had questions about special education classifications, civics instruction, and per-pupil allocation.

Councilman Ed Neilson asked why some schools with similarly sized populations had bigger budgets than others.

"Each kid is not getting treated fairly," Neilson said.

Officials said the formula was complicated, based on federal grants to schools that educate students living in poverty, special programs schools offer, and other factors.

A topic that occupied a surprising amount of time was the teaching of cursive writing. Several Council members were unsatisfied that the district does not mandate teaching cursive in the early grades.

School officials said that the skill was incorporated into the teaching of other subjects, and that they hesitated to layer another requirement on already-burdened early-grades teachers.

"Cursive writing should be mandatory," Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown said. "Children should be able to sign their names."

At least five Council members brought up cursive writing, some several times.

Hite said that he was surprised by the interest in the matter and that he understood Council's frustration with the funding situation.

But he said he held out hope.

"Council's also struggling with creating a source of revenue," he said. "Everyone wants to do something. I am encouraged by at least that."

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