PRINTER'S NO. 1243 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE RESOLUTION No.170 Session of 2025 INTRODUCED BY FRIEL, SANCHEZ, HILL-EVANS, GIRAL, BURGOS, KENYATTA, DONAHUE, STEELE, NEILSON, GREEN, MADDEN, CEPEDA- FREYTIZ AND WEBSTER, APRIL 3, 2025 REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, APRIL 3, 2025 A RESOLUTION Directing the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to conduct a comprehensive study of the financial impacts of pooling all school district property tax revenue at the intermediate unit level and distributing that money to school districts based on their average daily membership. WHEREAS, Public school districts in this Commonwealth have been inadequately and inequitably funded due in part to heavy reliance on local property taxes; and WHEREAS, Recently, the Commonwealth Court confirmed the unconstitutionality of current public education funding and ordered the General Assembly to fulfill its obligation to provide for a thorough and efficient public education system; and WHEREAS, One alternative method to do this is through pooling school district property tax revenue at the intermediate unit level; and WHEREAS, Collecting and analyzing these revenue numbers will help to construct a targeted approach to determine school district funding disparities from a regional perspective; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 therefore be it RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives direct the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to conduct a comprehensive study of the financial impacts of pooling all school district property tax revenue at the intermediate unit level and distributing that money to school districts based on their average daily membership; and be it further RESOLVED, That the study: (1) collect data on every school district's property tax revenue; (2) calculate and provide the mean and median effective property tax rate at the county level, intermediate unit level and Statewide; (3) provide a school district level variance of tax effort and tax revenue from the mean and the median; (4) determine how much revenue would be collected within each intermediate unit if school district revenue were pooled at the intermediate unit level; (5) determine the funding difference by school district if the pooled property tax revenue were distributed proportionately based on average daily membership of each school district in relation to the total average daily membership of the intermediate unit; and (6) evaluate the ways in which pooling and distributing school property tax revenue at the intermediate level does or does not make public education funding more equitable to meet our constitutional obligation to fairly fund public schools; and be it further RESOLVED, That the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, within one year of the adoption of this resolution, issue a 20250HR0170PN1243 - 2 - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 report with findings and recommendations to the General Assembly and post the report on the publicly accessible Internet website of the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee. 20250HR0170PN1243 - 3 - 1 2 3