Wolf to boost funding for public schools by increasing personal income tax

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf will propose a sweeping new plan to dramatically boost funding for public schools, to be supported by an increase in the state’s personal income tax rate that also expands exemptions for lower-wage earners, administration officials said Tuesday.

Wolf’s administration began releasing details of the plan to The Associated Press ahead of Wednesday’s planned budget address.

Under the plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1, Wolf, a Democrat, will ask the Republican-controlled Legislature for a $3 billion increase in the personal income tax to provide a massive boost to public schools and help fill a multibillion-dollar deficit inflicted by the pandemic.

The scope of the proposal rivals the budget Wolf proposed in his first year in office, which hit solid Republican opposition and never passed.

The proposal carries what could approach $2 billion extra for public schools, an increase of more than 20%.

The biggest part of that, $1.35 billion, would be distributed to schools to pay for their primary operations, like teacher salaries, operating costs and supplies, on top of the $6.8 billion they currently receive, Jen Swails, Wolf’s budget secretary, said in an interview.

The majority of that $8.1 billion would go out through a 5-year-old school funding formula designed to iron out inequities in how Pennsylvania funds the poorest public schools. A portion of it — about $1.1 billion — would ensure that no school district receives less than it does now.

Pennsylvania barely uses that funding formula, and Wolf’s proposal comes as a trial nears in a lawsuit filed in 2014 by a handful of school districts that accuses the state of inadequately funding public education.

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Schools also would receive another $200 million for special education aid, on top of the $1.2 billion they currently receive, plus $200 million for school construction and revisions to how charter and cyber charter schools are paid that could yield $229 million in savings for public schools, Swails said.

The personal income tax increase would take the flat rate to 4.49% from 3.07% — among the nation’s lowest — but increase the exemption for the lowest earners.

Under that scenario, the lowest earners — about 40% of the total — would pay less in income tax, while approximately the top one-third of taxpayers would pay more, Swails said.

The last increase in Pennsylvania’s personal income tax rate took effect in 2004. The governor’s plan to increase the personal income tax would raise about $3 billion extra, Swails said.

That is an increase of more than 20% when compared with 2019, the last fiscal year before the pandemic disrupted the economy and tax deadlines.

The tax exemption will expand to $15,000 for single filers from $6,500 currently, and from $10,000 for each dependent from $9,500 currently. The exemption for a family of four would go to $50,000 from $32,000 currently, meaning that households earning under $50,000 would pay not state income tax, the governor’s office said.

A household of four earning above $50,000, but below $84,000, would see a tax cut, it said. A household of four earning above $84,000 would pay more, it said.