 Okay why don't we get started I before we start maybe we could just Rick have a moment of observe a moment of silence for the people the victims in Charleston South Carolina just pause for a moment okay thank you very much I'm really pleased to be here with these two gentlemen senator Brown representative we they just and the commission behind them just presented this morning a fair funding formula which is a big big step for big step forward for I think the people of Pennsylvania and for our education system it's a was a bipartisan effort the output is bipartisan I think it's a really strong statement and it's a sign that we actually can reach across party lines across the aisle to do some really important things for for the people of Pennsylvania so I want to congratulate you senator Brown representative Burr and all the members of the Commission behind me I will not name you but thank you very much they did an extraordinary job and just want to say this formula makes a really important difference for our schools and it makes the allocation for education funding more transparent as well as fair and much more predictable those are things I think are really important so congratulations once again now let me just turn it over to senator Brown and then represent a verb for a few comments thank you governor I want to reiterate your comments regarding the collective work of the Commission and congratulate you for the work of your designees the budget secretary secretary of a policy and the secretary of education for their tremendous collaborative work and expertise and making this happen without them we would not have come to a consensus they did a tremendous job and I mentioned at the Commission final meeting that I'm in my 21st year in office I've in that time and I can think speak for those around us that education finance is some of the most compelling and challenging area public policy compelling because of the the people that it serves our state's most valuable resource our primary and secondary education students and challenging because of the diversity of the state but with the recommendations today I believe this Commission has met its charge to on a unanimous basis by partisan by camera basis along with the administration to promote more equity fairness sustainability and education finance we spent 12 months had a very very thorough due diligence process and in that we're able to gather testimony that led us to some very credible defendable conclusions that a formula needs to be student-based that has to meet our the primary foundation of our education imperative the distribution of funding to our local education institutions is needed for the education of our students and it must be set that way and be based on a dynamic dynamic basis to adjust over time that way it reflects student need that in much match and benchmark the decisions that school districts make in appropriating additional resource resources based on the needs of students so that the formula has factors that accommodate that for poverty for acute poverty for the concentrations of poverty for English proficiency and for charter schools and we develop weights in order to accommodate the distribution of those resources working with our our experts at the independent fiscal office and a lot of other associations that were a tremendous value to us and then once you determine the needs of students you have to determine what capacity a school district has at its own disposable disposal to raise money to provide for the education of those students we had used a determination of wealth for years it was probably the most our sustainable component of our formula called an aid ratio for many many years and what we found out from our experts was that over time became less credible less transparent so we moved to a whole new platform which is based on the median income within households and districts and then looking at that and also looking at what capacity a district has to raise money and what tax equity it it puts on that capacity we're able to determine what resources a district has available to it to match with state resources provides for its students and lastly to accommodate the important issues of economies of scale as districts get smaller they have less resources to spread along their fixed costs that must be provided by all districts so we adopted a sparsity size ratio that was also in the special education funding formula that accommodates for that the members of this commission represent the challenge that we have in providing equity sustainability and fairness in education funding because we represent the diversity of the commonwealth all different types of communities different frameworks different needs but what we have in common is what made this work and that is our understanding of the importance the imperative of educating our students and coming to a better means distribute those dollars and that's more than just our charge it's our obligation to the future of Pennsylvania so thank you governor thank you very much represent a few words a few governor thank you I chairman sailor I know you don't want to join us up here but I think you should because he's going to be authoring the bill from the House but governor I you know senator brown obviously hit on a lot of what has gone on in facts and figures but I think this is really historic moment we had a piece of legislation go through the House and Senate signed by our previous governor we had a commission where everyone had representation we had a transition and administrations in the middle of this your your secretary of budget was already involved from the Senate staff side we made sure very early on that that transition was going to continue to be smooth and not stall us and then we all stayed away from philosophy and focused on the one thing that we recognize here in Pennsylvania that is what we were doing is not working and we kept away from monies that's for the bigger table governor but at the end of the day this I think that this provides awesome framework transparencies of people see why money is going where and predictability for our school boards they have some type of an idea what they're going to be facing with regardless of what Harrisburg decides in the budget time so I really feel and senator brown said it a few times we're going to get this done this is going to be a big moment for Pennsylvania and it is a big moment but the next big moment is all of us lobbying our colleagues in the House and the Senate and your legislative affairs office working to get this product through both chambers and hopefully come back to your desk for signature to put in the law and we can move forward for the betterment of our students in Pennsylvania so thank you for having us here today thanks very much how was it good okay thanks a lot okay we have time for a few questions and and you can address you can address them to any of the three of us or actually anybody in the in the commission Governor representative mentioned the lobbying effort that's going to have to be made to get this through the legislature can is it possible because this formula does have a Robin Hood like a factory gonna get more money to districts that need it based on those weighted factors that kind of thing versus a district that doesn't need it so are you anticipating a big fight for a big fight believe that that's right who are you addressing that to all of us yeah sure I think that Steve the it's it's we had a year 15 hearings over a hundred folks testifying representing dozens of school districts we're taking all that information translating at the paper and in a period of weeks or months trying to translate how we came to the document that we came to so we're gonna have to educate our colleagues on why we ended up where we are and of course it's something new just like this commission was new people doubted it would ever get off the ground people doubted when we extended a week that this is just another Harrisburg Commission so we have to take that energy the friendships and the bipartisanship and certainly the support of the great talent that the administration has and my good friend the secretary of error I mean one day he's testifying in front of a superintendent two weeks later he's nominated so gives you an example how this world is round and I think we just need to work on the on this product educate our colleagues and Steve it's I think it's important to note that members of the commission very fairly and adequately represents the dynamics in the General Assembly members are from very different communities represent different parts of the Commonwealth and we came to a consensus today so I think that reflects the thought process in the assembly regarding the work product we have here and I can say pretty clearly that the vast majority of people in the assembly understand the need in a formula to accommodate equity that there are districts that don't have the capacity to raise money and there are districts that have students with more needs and they will understand that when we present that to them I personally believe that when I'm at the opportunity to present this with Senator Fulmer and smucker and myself to our caucus and we will it'll be well received I just like say I think the people of Pennsylvania are looking at this the same way they are and that is this is not an effort to assign blame or fault it's a fact that there are some school districts that are better able to teach their kids they have the resources maybe more than than other schools do but all of us share in the problem of underfunding of education I might live in York County but if the child in Philadelphia doesn't get a good education that's a problem for child in Elk County doesn't get a good education that's a problem we all share and I think the members of the legislature Republican or Democrat liberal or conservative understand that and this commission is reflection of that any other questions the future of whole formula provision is clear right now I know that members have said it's up to the general assembly about what to do with that I'm just curious why the commission did take a clear position on the formula well keep in mind now that the commission's formula the foundation of it is a dynamic model for student based funding all right the provision of hold harmless is something that says the district gets the same amount of money next year as they had this year the models foundation is built on a student count an average student count that changes over time so that provision as a matter of public policy isn't accommodated in the formula I think the concern is what do we do with the current pool of dollars there's a current pool of dollars and there might be a future pool of dollars those are budget decisions those are decisions the assembly would decide whether it'll apply this formula to the current pool of dollars or to a future pool of dollars but we recognize as a commission that in order to for a formula to be credible sustainable that it needs to reflect the dynamics dynamic interests of a district in terms of its student population and that's the foundation of the formula you see the now the Pennsylvania 500 school districts the 500 school districts in the state do you see that being an impediment with getting this through the legislature for the process you mean that we have a great diversity of school districts in Pennsylvania I don't I mean the idea was we're one of three states at this point without a fair funding formula every other 47 states in the union do we don't so I think this is an attempt to address that very diversity I think the again part of our job as chairs which is not scheduling meetings and scheduling hearings but keeping our train on a track heading in a direction towards our goals and the goals were not to to a fix or a fine blame or try to find out what districts operating better than the other Governor Rindell had proposed back in the day of every of cutting districts in half and at the time is against it and as I'm going through this you start thinking about administrative costs but as you as I leave the suburban area outside of Philadelphia and you get in the Cambria County you realize the kids are on buses for an hour and 15 minutes or an hour and a half each way to school each one of those schools must have some type of administrative presence because they're very far apart from each other so that's just an issue we stayed frankly away from and focus on our end goal and that is to set the framework for the general assembly to essentially put the pot of money at the top and establish a framework that will trickle the money down to the schools in a much more fair way Can you help explain to folks at home who might read this as maybe money leaving their school district or more money going to a certain school district help really imply language explain to them why they shouldn't be afraid of this Well let me try first I mean then you can give the real answer but I think this is this is really an effort to take whatever pool of money we all appropriate they appropriate and I sign whatever pool of money that is to allocate it as fairly as possible and it is silent on how much as it should be because that's going to vary from year to year but however much money we have to invest in education the idea of the commission is that we're going to do it as fairly as possible Did I say that right? Yeah I think that people of Pennsylvania have a good understanding of the need for this I can use my own county as an example the county is pretty much a good prototype of Pennsylvania that has a large challenged urban center with wealthy suburbs and rural areas and people in that region understand that in order for children to have a fair chance at a quality education that there needs to be an accommodation for the needs of students and equity and I don't believe that this framework is would be a surprise to the majority of Pennsylvania's I think they'll embrace it I think just in plain language as we're all trying to explain to you my view of all along has been we throw money at zip codes and we really in some cases didn't have the justification to do that and again to move forward to be fair you can't really look back at what's going wrong we just know that a large portion of how we've been doing things just have not worked That's a realistic date for adoption of legislature Next week I'm sorry Chairman Saylor is already in the drafting process I know that Senator Smucker is as well and you know it's all on our selling ability and if I may you know we only have a few weeks because we're going to have a balanced budget done here with the governor's signature and we'll try to do our best before June 30th to get it moving It's something as you know those who've been here for a while that's I would believe to be accommodated with all the rest of the important components of the budget well with the education code, the welfare code, the budget and the budget, the fiscal code What I can say at this point in time is as Chairman Verb had said the education chairs are engaged they're both members of this all for them are members of this commission and we look forward to their advancement of these the language that accommodates the formula out of their committees as soon as possible to get the process started but I'm very confident that in the end it'll be part of the final product I can assure you I'll sign it as quickly as I get it to my desk And do people who are in a desperate situation There's one other, somebody else could ask the question Does anybody else have a question? All right, thank you Yeah, so for a parent or a kid who's in a kind of a desperate situation in their school district best case scenario that gets passed in two weeks and then when does help on the way? When do they start to see some sense of normalcy in their district, some sense of stability? And I know that rests on what the pool of funding is going to be It really does, I think that's a key issue It's a good point as to how quickly the money gets there The schools have done their budgeting probably back in the winter Most of the boards and I think they may or may not have taken into account later on what I propose and what others have proposed This is a new thing thrown into the mix I think it's up to the school district as to how they take this into account and it really comes down to not only how we're going to distribute the money but how much is in that pool and that's going to be part of the budget process So that still has yet to be decided May I suggest there's more than one student or parent sitting home in distress and I just say that we are light years ahead of where we were a year ago today and we have a work set out for us but we've made that commitment and we'll continue to make that commitment and get it enacted as soon as possible We can definitely say with an exact date at this point as to how much and when but when it does happen with this formula that family will know they'll be treated more fairly Okay, thank you very much