Pennsylvania Budget Secretary Jen Swails defended the governor’s $45 million proposed cut to school safety grants during a brief – and sometimes tense – Senate hearing this week that placed the onus squarely on dwindling commitments from legislative reserves.
Wails told the Senate Appropriations Committee that state law guarantees $15 million each year through 2021 for the program while the remaining funding has been a combination of legislative reserves and personal income tax revenue.
During the program’s first year, legislative reserves provided $35 million and the PIT funded an additional $15 million. In the current year, PIT funding increased to $45 million to make up for the lost legislative reserve dollars.
A February report from the Legislative Audit Advisory Commission tallied the Legislature’s existing reserves at $172 million.
“Yes, we are faced with funding issues,” Swails said. “As with everything, we are happy to discuss further on whether we believe it should be more.”
Sen. Wayne Langerholc Jr., R-Cambria, who initially opened the line of questioning about the cut, pressed Swails further on whether the administration could find a way to restore the funding.
“If this administration wanted to find a way to find this, they could, correct?” he said.
“Sure,” Swails said.
Outrage over the 75 percent cut, which would reduce available school safety grants awarded by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCDD) to just $15 million in the 2020-21 fiscal year, began mounting among Republicans during Gov. Tom Wolf’s Feb. 3 budget address.
Still, few of the administration’s top officials, including Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera, could explain why the $36.1 billion spending plan cut into the program so deeply.
That is, until the Senate Appropriations Committee’s last round of budget hearings on Wednesday.
“The thought around that was in the first two years, districts used those dollars for more capital improvements – doors, cameras, things like that, one-time costs,” Swails said. “Now we are looking to use these dollars for investments in school counselors. That’s already an approved use of this, but really focusing [grants] on that.”
The PCCD began administering grants to districts in 2018 to help improve school safety through upgraded infrastructure and more robust mental health services, among other uses. On Feb. 26, the commission awarded $53.7 million to more than 500 school entities across the state.
