Action Groups

Education Finance Action Group Report

Goal Statement
Seek an equitable, predictable state formula for financing public education that guarantees every school district has adequate resources to provide a quality education to its students, that promotes accountability and efficiency, and that ensures that no community is overtaxed locally to provide what is ultimately a state-wide responsibility.

Just as education is key to an individual's success, the manner in which we finance education is critical to a region's success. The current system for financing education in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is grossly unequal. Because of Pennsylvania's over-reliance on local taxes -- of whatever form -- to finance public education, the residents of many first suburbs pay local taxes that are 50-80% higher than residents in newer and wealthier communities. At the same time, the school districts in many first suburbs often have greater resource needs because these communities have greater concentrations of poverty and immigrants. And because the Commonwealth does not step in to ensure each school district can adequately provide a quality education to its students, the result is that some communities spend $18,000 per pupil based on one local tax rate, while others spend less than half of that amount while paying a much higher local tax rate.

The implications for our region are enormous. Residential and commercial developers avoid investing in the high tax first suburbs to instead build in fast-developing areas where school taxes are lower. Higher-earning families choose to move out to those same areas in order to pay lower local school taxes while receiving a higher value education. Immigrants and impoverished children are blamed for the demands they place on first suburbs' school districts. Pennsylvania's system for financing public education encourages sprawl, discourages investment in older first suburbs, increases demographic tensions, and fails to provide a quality education to too many of our region's children. Therefore, Pennsylvania must implement a sound school funding formula based on the following principles:

Adequacy. A new school funding formula should provide necessary and sufficient educational and financial resources to every school district to ensure that every student will receive a quality education, as identified by the state's "costing-out" study.

Equity. A new school funding formula should "level the playing field" among communities and school districts by reducing the current disparity of educational and financial resources in the 501 school districts in the Commonwealth and by relieving the local tax burden in communities where the burden is excessive.

Accountability. A new school funding formula should ensure that new public funds invested in education will be used in a cost-effective way to support educational strategies that are proven to increase academic achievement.

Predictability. State law mandates that school districts budget in January of each calendar year, yet the General Assembly doesn't provide financial information until after the state budget is passed in June. A new school funding formula should provide state funding in a manner that allows school districts to accurately plan their budget from year to year.

Efficiency. A new school funding formula should protect against the future return of ruinous tax burdens in local school districts and promote the cost-effective use of public resources in providing a quality education to all students.

Infrastructure Action Group Report

Goal Statement
Secure investments in Southeastern Pennsylvania's water infrastructure in a manner that is efficient, sustainable, equitable and coordinated throughout the region.

Southeastern Pennsylvania faces a looming water infrastructure crisis. To repair and upgrade aging drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems, and to deal with mounting regulatory challenges, our region will need to invest billions of dollars in water infrastructure in the coming years. Any future water infrastructure investments should be guided by the following principles:

Efficiency. Southeastern Pennsylvania's water and wastewater infrastructure has expanded rapidly into previously undeveloped areas at a rate that far exceeds population growth, despite the excess capacity that exists in the overall system. Meanwhile, we have failed to invest adequately in maintaining our existing infrastructure. Future infrastructure investments should be guided by a "fix-it-first" policy that prioritizes using and improving existing infrastructure before investing in new infrastructure.

Fiscal Sustainability. To provide for ongoing maintenance and upgrades, and to avert future funding crises like the one we are now facing, infrastructure managers should budget for the eventual replacement of worn out assets and adopt full-cost pricing policies that build future maintenance costs into current rate structures.

Environmental Sustainability. Current policies and institutional arrangements in Pennsylvania discourage integrated water resource management by treating drinking water, wastewater and stormwater as separate domains. Current policies also make it difficult to coordinate water infrastructure decisions with local land use regulations that guide the location and character of development and strongly affect water resources. Policies and incentives should be aligned to encourage a comprehensive approach to water management that protects water quality, conserves groundwater, prevents ecologically harmful withdrawals from rivers and streams, and coordinates infrastructure investments with sound land use management.

Equity. Water does not recognize municipal boundaries, but our policies still require each municipality or authority to address water infrastructure in a piecemeal fashion. This approach places undue burden on older communities that must accommodate water flow from outlying areas, have systems that are in dire need of repair and improvement, and face new federal mandates that will necessitate expensive new investments. These first suburbs also face a declining tax base and are unable to afford the infrastructure investments required of them. Costs must be distributed to recognize the regional nature of these systems so individual municipalities do not bear this burden alone.

Coordinated Throughout the Region. The problems noted above are exacerbated by a highly fragmented system for managing water infrastructure in southeastern Pennsylvania. With responsibility divided among a complex array of municipalities, municipal authorities, public utilities and state agencies, redundancies and inefficiencies abound and disjointed decision-making is the rule. New infrastructure investments should be accompanied by new institutional arrangements that allow for improved coordination and more efficient service delivery throughout the region.

Housing Action Group Report

Goal Statement
Seek housing policies and funding streams that help promote greater socioeconomic balance and diversity throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Southeastern Pennsylvania's housing stock is increasingly segregated, to the detriment of employers, workers and their families, older communities and the region as a whole. Employers in exurban job centers are increasingly finding that their lower-paid workers must commute vast distances because of the lack of affordable housing closer to their jobs. Older suburban communities are experiencing deteriorating housing stock and increases in low-income and affordable housing that concentrates poverty to the detriment of their communities, their tax base, and the life outcomes of the families involved. These housing trends negatively impact the region as a whole, yet our public policies only reinforce these trends. First suburbs cannot access public funds that allow them to build and promote "market-rate" housing to increase their tax base. Affordable housing programs prioritize the provision of affordable housing in areas with distressed housing markets rather than in the newer suburbs that lack such housing. The region as a whole lacks a housing plan that would provide a vision to achieve greater socioeconomic balance and diversity throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania.

1. Develop a Regional Housing Plan

An organization with a regional perspective should develop a regional housing plan that can be tied to funding incentives that will encourage counties and municipalities to better diversify their housing stock in order to achieve a greater regional balance in the housing stock.

2. Finance "Market Rate" Housing in Distressed First Suburbs

Create or expand state and federal funding streams that will help promote and construct "market rate" housing in the first suburbs' distressed housing markets so these suburbs can increase their tax base and attract higher-income earners. Examples of possible funding streams include an expansion of the federal Community Development Block Grant and passage of a state historic tax credit that would direct funds to first suburbs for these purposes.

3. Reform the Section 8 Program

Reform the current structure of Section 8 housing vouchers to avoid concentrating the use of these vouchers in the first suburbs' already distressed housing markets and to better balance the use of the vouchers throughout the region. Reforms could include increasing the use of "exception payment standards," raising Fair Market Rents, increasing payment standards across-the-board, or implementing education programs to inform recipients of housing alternatives throughout the region.