Inadequate state education funding is the actual reason local school property taxes have increased, not pension payments as said in “Pensions Listed as Top Reason for School Increases,” East, July 17.

The No. 1 reason property taxes continue to climb in Pennsylvania is that the state is not holding up its end of the deal when it comes to funding schools. The state and school districts should equally share the cost of educating students; however, currently, they do not.

For four years, the previous governor starved school districts of state funding, which left districts to rely more on local property taxes. Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget proposal, which House and Senate Democrats have embraced, would restore past education funding cuts and raise the state’s share of overall education funding from 37 to 50 percent.

In the legislative district I represent, school districts would receive an average 8.6 percent increase in state funding: East Allegheny 10.7 percent; Gateway 8.2 percent; Penn-Trafford 3.8 percent; Plum 4.9 percent and Woodland Hills 15.6 percent. Thankfully, Gov. Wolf vetoed the Republican budget, which would have provided school districts with only about one-fourth of that amount.

The Post-Gazette should ask those same districts if they would need to raise local taxes if they received the state funding increases proposed by Democrats. My guess is they would not, which is why education funding is my top priority for the 2015-16 state budget.

REP. JOSEPH MARKOSEK

D-Monroeville

The writer is a member of the state House of Representatives and is minority chairman of House Appropriations Committee. 

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First Published: July 31, 2015, 10:33 a.m.