January 26, 2024
HARRISBURG, PA – January 26, 2024 − Today, members of the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic caucus praise Governor Shapiro’s new blueprint for higher education, which seeks to expand access to higher education for Pennsylvania’s learners while consolidating governance and moving towards a more predictable, performance-based funding formula.
“I greet the Governor’s higher education blueprint with excitement. As we grapple with dysfunction in higher education and the burdens of student loan debt, we must reimagine our systems in Pennsylvania to set up our students for success and prepare them for the demands of the modern workforce,” said Senator Costa. “The Governor’s plan will strengthen our State System of Higher Education and our community colleges, make higher education more affordable for those who want to seek it, and provide a better governance structure providing for better continuity in our workforce training pipeline and for transparency and accountability. I look forward to continued conversations with all partners and stakeholders coming to the table as we go forward in developing this plan.”
Senator Costa is a proud alumnus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Community College of Allegheny County, where he presently serves as a board member.
Senator Vincent Hughes, Chair of the Appropriations Committee, said the following:
“The Governor’s proposal has the potential to transform higher education in Pennsylvania. Making higher education affordable has been priority for me and members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, and I applaud Governor Shapiro’s focus on tackling Pennsylvania’s shortcomings head on. I look forward to hearing more and working with him to make the Commonwealth’s higher education offerings the best in the nation.”
State Senator Judy Schwank, who sits on the PASSHE board of governors, said the following:
“The Governor has proposed an innovative plan to revitalize higher education in the Commonwealth. During my tenure as a PASSHE board member, I’ve come to recognize the necessity of approaching higher education in a more comprehensive manner. This blueprint is a great starting point that I am excited to support and help further develop.”
Governor Shapiro’s blueprint is accessible in full here. Among other things, the blueprint seeks to:
- Create a new system for higher education that unites the PASSHE universities and 15 community colleges under a new governance system
- Cap tuition at $1000/semester for learners making up to the median income in Pennsylvania
- Fund institutions of higher education on a performance-based formula that incentivize increased enrollment, graduation rate, and workforce development in areas of shortage, specifically education and nursing.
Learn more about the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Caucus’ commitment to an excellent education for every Pennsylvanian here.
October 26, 2016
Harrisburg – October 26, 2016 − The State Senate today approved bipartisan legislation authored by Senators Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) and Judy Schwank (D-Berks) that would significantly change the state’s truancy laws.
The legislation, spurred by the 2014 death of a Berks County mother in prison as a result of a truancy violation, shifts the focus of dealing with truancy to schools from the court system, and imposes new requirements before a case can be sent to the courts or a person can be jailed for truancy.
“This bill returns the power to address truancy to the schools, the administrators and teachers who know their students best,” Schwank said. “This really is the right way to address truancy.”
“The Commonwealth’s truancy statute is in dire need of revisions that will refocus the law on improving school attendance and solving a child’s problems rather than needlessly incarcerating parents who cannot afford to pay fines,” Greenleaf said. “Our current truancy statute has resulted in the tragic death of a jailed mother—and inexcusable failure of justice.”
Instead of relying on court intervention, schools would be first required to address the underlying cause of a student’s unexcused absence by the development of individualized plans. Prison sentences could be used only as a last resort and for no more than three days.
Schwank called Eileen DiNino’s 2014 death in Berks County Prison a wake-up call that led to increased awareness about the differences in how different school districts and courts handled truancy cases.
“The bill won’t bring Eileen back, but hopefully it will prevent any other family from experiencing the same pain,” Schwank said.
Under the bill, which now will be returned to the House of Representatives to approve the changes made by the Senate, schools will be required respond to truancy cases as soon as a child becomes truant. Schools would be required to notify parents or guardians and offer intervention services on the first instance of truancy.
If the truancy is repeated, schools would be required to attempt to meet with the parents or guardian and explore the need and availability of assistive services, before they could refer a case to the court system.
There could be any number of reasons for truancy, Schwank said. For example, sick or working parents who are unable to transport the student to school; or families who cannot afford childcare use students to babysit younger siblings. No matter the reason, missing school can have long-lasting repercussions, especially for low-income families.
“If students aren’t in school they can’t learn,” Schwank said. “It’s another strike against them.”
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March 16, 2016
READING, March 16, 2016 – The second session of state Sen. Judy Schwank’s third annual “Berks County Model Senate” will give area high school participants to experience the legislative committee process and the opportunity to interview subject matter experts.
The session will open at 11 a.m. in Sen. Schwank’s district office on George Street. The committee session are scheduled to take place at noon.
“Our model senators have learned how to elect leaders and propose bills to help their constituents and improve the quality of life in their communities,” Schwank said. “Tomorrow, they will introduce their bills and sit opposite people who understand the impact their ideas could have on people as they work to make their bills become law.”
Thursday’s Model Senate will include six committee sessions. The topics and subject matter experts include:
Agriculture – Sen. Judy Schwank
Judicial – Richard Podguski, the director of the Bureau of Offender and Re-Entry at the Board of Probation and Parole
Environment – Greg Kauffman, a legislative liaison for the PA Department of Environmental Protection
State Government – Ron Young, PennDOT district press officer
Education – Dr. Solomon Lausch, former Schuylkill Valley School District superintendent and current executive director of the Berks Business Education Coalition
Health & Welfare – Mary Turner, MS, the program coordinator for “Keystone Education Yields Success,” or KEYS, at Reading Area Community College
Sen. Schwank’s Model Senate will meet once more before concluding.
Media coverage is invited.
WHAT: Sen. Judy Schwank’s third annual Berks County Model Senate
WHEN: 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., Thursday, March 17
WHERE: Conference room, Muhlenberg Township Municipal Building, 210 George St., Reading
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June 30, 2014
HARRISBURG, June 30, 2014 – Because it fails to address Pennsylvania’s real issues – like property tax reform and taxing Marcellus Shale companies – state Sen. Sen. Judy Schwank today voted “no” on Pennsylvania’s $29.1 billion 2014-2015 budget.
“We have worked hard in Harrisburg to help Republicans and Gov. Tom Corbett understand that Pennsylvania is deeper in its financial quagmire because of the policies of the past four years,” Schwank, the Democratic chair of the Senate Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee said.
“Pennsylvanians, unlike Marcellus Shale companies that are reaping billions of dollars in profits taking natural gas from beneath our earth, are struggling. Yet we can’t even agree to a small tax on the gas Marcellus Shale companies extract because Republicans and the governor are only interested in protecting them,” Sen. Schwank said. “Pennsylvania is the only state not to tax the natural gas that is being pulled from our ground.”
Had Pennsylvania levied a 5 percent severance tax on gas drillers, as Senate Democrats proposed in March, Schwank said the tax would have generated $700 million in new revenue to improve education, better protect the environment and spark new economic development.
Coupled with the $400 million that also would have flowed to the commonwealth under Medicaid expansion, most of the state’s $1.5 billion deficit would have been painlessly covered and 500,000 residents, including 23,000 veterans, would finally have received health care insurance.
“Instead, our $1.5 billion Corbett deficit has been ‘covered’ by inflated projections and deep cuts to essential economic development, environmental protection and job creation programs. And, no new funding streams mean we will have less ability to offset fiscal shortfalls if projections fall short, as some are anticipating could happen by early 2015 to the tune of $2.5 billion.
“Billions of dollars are being squandered by the commonwealth. This should be money we can invest with to offset education funding shortfalls that schools districts continue to pass on to local taxpayers through higher property taxes.
“School property tax bills are being mailed out now and I am painfully aware the effect this is having on residents, particularly seniors and those on fixed incomes,” Sen. Schwank said.
“The window is closing on the chance for us to deliver true property tax relief to our homeowners, but the General Assembly has some time to address this critical issue before the 2013-14 session ends later this year,” she said.
While Democrats in the Senate and House have been vocal about what they believe needs to be done to right Pennsylvania’s financial ship, Schwank said they were invited late to budget talks.
“If all parties would have been at the table, perhaps a consensus could have been found to find real solutions. Instead, partisan politics took center stage to the detriment of our commonwealth and our residents,” the senator said.
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Follow Sen. Schwank on her website, Facebook and Twitter.
March 28, 2014
READING, March 27, 2014 – To improve the education of children, better protect Pennsylvania’s environment and spark long-awaited economic development, Sen. Judy Schwank (D-Berks) today announced her support for new legislation that would impose a severance tax on natural gas drilling in the state’s Marcellus Shale region.
The 5 percent levy, which would raise $720 million in the coming fiscal year, would make critical investments in public education, job creation, and the environment.
Standing before a paint factory in Reading that has been vacant for the past seven years, Schwank said the tax on the very profitable Marcellus Shale companies would provide much-needed funding for critical areas that have suffered in previous state budgets, especially economic development and the environment.
“With the modest 5 percent severance tax we are advocating today, Pennsylvania would be able to restore countless vacant sites throughout the commonwealth,” Schwank said. “We would be able to invest $195 million in 2014-’15 to programs that spark local economies and grow jobs. That pool of resources would increase to $250 million the following year.
“Equally important: our proposal makes sure that natural gas drillers, which include some of the largest corporations in the world, are paying their fair share going forward,” she said.
The Marcellus Shale severance would also help to infuse more investment into the state’s Growing Greener program.
If approved, Sen. Schwank said the 5 percent tax would increase Growing Greener’s annual investment from $18 million this year to $75 million 2014-’15. The popular program would receive $120 million in year two of the levy; $150 million the following year.
Sen. Schwank said this proposal would generate far more revenue than the state currently receives from natural gas drilling. Pennsylvania is only projected to receive $217 million this year as a result of the current drilling impact fee. The proposed legislation would generate $937 million through a combination of the fee and severance tax.
Thirty-six states assess some kind of severance tax on natural gas drillers. Nearly all of them apply that duty on the extraction of oil and gas.
Pennsylvania is the only major state to not tax natural gas drillers, and that fact alone, the senator reminded, defeats opponents’ argument that the levy is a jobs-creation killer.
“Over the past three years, Pennsylvania has gone from 8th to 48th among in job creation,” Schwank said. “Secondly, where natural gas companies are paying an extraction levy – jobs ARE being created and the natural gas companies continue to profit … handsomely.”
Most importantly, Schwank, who was joined at the press conference by Reading City Councilwoman Donna Reed, Kutztown Mayor Sandy Green and IBEW Local 743 Business Manager Mel Fishburn, said public opinion polls show overwhelming support for a tax on the companies that drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale play.
The most recent Mercyhurst University poll found that Pennsylvanians favor the levy, 70-17.
Sen. Schwank’s press conference to announce her support for the severance tax was one of three in the commonwealth. Senate Democratic Appropriations Chairman Vince Hughes highlighted the benefits of the levy on education during a rally in Philadelphia. Sen. John Yudichak (D-Carbon/Luzerne) emphasized the positive impact the Marcellus Shale duty would have for Pennsylvanians during an event in Hanover Township, Luzerne County.
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Follow Sen. Schwank on her website, Facebook and Twitter.
April 17, 2013
Harrisburg, April 17, 2013 – Senate Democrats’ 2013-14 budget priorities are heavily weighted toward job creation, education investments, strengthening the social-services safety net, modernizing liquor sales and refocusing Pennsylvania’s business tax menu to help small businesses, they announced today at a Capitol news conference.
Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) said that Senate Democrats will go into this year’s budget negotiations with a clear purpose and “are resolved that the state’s economy must be jump-started. New jobs must be created and we have to reverse the negative course that the Corbett administration has plotted for Pennsylvania on education and protecting our most vulnerable.”
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“We have an opportunity and a responsibility to seek new investments and use resources that are available to change policy direction during this year’s budget negotiations.”
Costa said Senate Democrats believe that more than 120,000 jobs can be created quickly by enacting a responsible transportation plan, expanding Medicaid and using economic development policies outlined in their PA Works plan.
Costa was joined by a host of Senate Democrats in making today’s announcement.
Sen. Vincent Hughes, who serves as the Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that by taking action now on key economic initiatives then restoring job creation and community programs to their past luster — before Corbett budgets sliced them to the core — is an excellent starting point.
“We need to start creating jobs right now and we can do that by working on transportation and Medicaid expansion,” Hughes (D-Philadelphia/Montgomery) said. “These initiatives coupled with rebuilding water and sewer systems, investing in schools and new technologies will create economic growth immediately.
“In addition, by investing in programs such as Main Street, Elm Street and international business we can help small business here while they market their products abroad.,”
Democratic Whip Sen. Tony Williams (D-Philadelphia/Delaware) said that the caucus was turning up the heat on the Corbett administration on jobs, health care, education and social safety net issues because the governor has failed to lead.
“We’ve outlined reasonable strategic policy alternatives that will reverse direction and provide a new path and we’ve identified revenues that will pay for the proposed expenditures,” Williams said. “Pennsylvania is rudderless on job creation and our economic numbers and business indicators under this administration illustrate the problem.
“Our most vulnerable can also not withstand another senseless round of Corbett cuts and we have to restore programs that promote help for those in need.”
Williams said that Pennsylvania is now 43rd in job creation, falling from eighth place among all states under Gov. Ed Rendell’s leadership. Plus, he said, last month’s unemployment claims fell nationally to below 350,000 but, because of Corbett policy short-sightedness, Pennsylvania led the country in new unemployment claims.
Senate Democrats said that they have laid out specific plans to achieve results in the 2013-14 budget in five areas. These include: strategic investments to create jobs; improving education; repositioning business taxes while closing business tax loopholes; modernizing the wine and spirits stores; and repairing and protecting social safety net programs.
The caucus leaders said that they’ve noted at least $750 million in annual savings, plus another $150 million in one-time revenues. They also said that we need to find resources to pay for specific new expenditures including $225 million for basic education, $50 million to aid distressed cities and communities, $40 million for transitional housing and homeownership among other items, and funds for new tax credits for a variety of areas including film production.
Democrats said that priority details include a three-year phase in of new monies to restore education dollars and key student-performance based initiatives that were cut by the Corbett administration in the last two budgets.
They also said that they would emphasize rebuilding struggling communities through their Growth, Progress and Sustainability (GPS) plan; seek new funds for transitional housing and new homeownership opportunities; and push for modernizing the wine and spirits stores rather than the opt for the risky privatization scheme that has been sought by the Corbett administration.
The Democrats indicated that they expected the negotiations to become more focused once the Senate returns to session in late April.
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June 8, 2012
READING, June 8, 2012 — As school districts across Pennsylvania struggle with gaping budget deficits and subsequent cuts in staff and programs, state Sen. Judy Schwank joined local public school advocates today to introduce her resolution that calls on the governor to develop a comprehensive legislative plan to improve basic education.
The resolution recommends that the governor establish an advisory commission made up of parents, teachers, school administrators, higher education leaders, business leaders, and legislators to examine the issue and make specific recommendations.
“For several years we have allowed a budget process to dictate the direction of basic education in Pennsylvania. It’s time we consider the future of education in a thoughtful and deliberative process,” Schwank said. “My resolution calls on Gov. Corbett to empanel a team of experts to study education in the commonwealth and to make specific recommendations to address specific issues.”
School districts across the state are facing financial issues due to funding cuts and the end of federal stimulus funding. Locally, Reading School District is laying off more than 100 teachers and eliminating an additional 60 teaching position in the face of a $40 million budget deficit.
“No child should have to fight for their education. Their job is to go to school, study hard, engage in activities and make lifelong memories with their friends,” Schwank said. “Instead, they are losing their teachers and various programs. Schools are closing around them. It’s shameful.”
Schwank said the committee should look at a range of issues, including the current education funding formula and alternative funding sources; the issue of property tax reform and how to sustainably fund education in the next 10 to 20 years; how to maintain local direction of schools while maximizing effective use of funds; determine which programs are essential for a 21st century model of public education; how to address schools in fiscally distressed communities; explore revising the PA school code and recommend shared services and school consolidation options.
“This is one issue where every Pennsylvania citizen is a stakeholder, so the Corbett administration’s vision for public education should be clear,” Schwank said. “At the same time, the public should play a key part in determining its future. Education is just too important to impose an agenda without giving citizens a voice.”
Representatives from several local school districts spoke in support of the senator’s resolution and the need to discuss education funding methods, especially as school districts across the state are struggling to balance budgets.
“In my 17 years as a teacher I’ve never seen anything this dire. We’re struggling to repair antiquated equipment so students can get basic understanding of their education,” said Rik Immendorf, a high school physics teacher at Reading High School. “I fully support the need to have those of us on front lines on a commission, and not just political pals talking about school districts. We shouldn’t balance the budget on the backs of students and that’s what Gov. Corbett is doing right now.”
“What we’re seeing today is a movement on the part of some to become somewhat elitist on who we educate,” said Dr. Martin Handler, superintendent of Brandywine Heights School District. “This is a terrific first step, having people who work in education make the recommendations and plans for education. I believe allowing people who have expertise to develop plans is the way to go.”
Handler said school districts are even being forced to cut education even at the most basic level — early education.
“All research shows that’s where students sustain greatest amount learning,” Handler said. “Financial challenges are forcing school districts to reconsider funding full-day kindergarten. That’s unconscionable and will have negative affects far into future.”
Exeter School Board member Carole Kutscher said her district’s long-range plans like full-day kindergarten and a successful high school co-op program have been compromised because of school funding cuts.
“I think it’s just ridiculous… it’s almost criminal,” Kutscher said. “No business would operate this way.”
Mitch Hettinger, a middle school teacher in the Reading School District, said the education cuts also impact schools’ brightest students, who will likely go on to college and contribute back to their community.
“These students are motivated to go out and do things in our community. Our students go to college, get their education degree and they come back to the City of Reading to work in the school district they love, only to be laid off because of the cuts that Gov. Corbett forced on students,” Hettinger said. “I think this is an outstanding concept and I am 100 percent in favor of it.”
“It goes beyond Reading. Like most urban school districts, we’re at the tipping point as to what’s going to happen,” said Reading School Board member James Washington. “We’re all going to be suffering.”
Samantha Matthies, a 2012 graduate of the Berks Career and Techology Center, argued for the importance of arts programs in schools.
Matthies recently won the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s annual radio public service announcement contest for high-school students. This year’s theme was discouraging distracted driving.
Commenting on the ornate Capitol in Harrisburg that she recently visited, she said. “Art is right in the Capitol building. Why can’t it be in our schools? It’s what keeps passion in our world. It’s just as important as the mandatory classes you have to take and it should be in our schools.”
“Sam is just one example of what we’re turning out in our schools in Berks County and in the commonwealth and we’re watching it all erode by budget fiat,” Schwank said. “That’s not the way to plan for success. I think basic education deserves to be studied.”
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