Philadelphia turns to smokers to pay for education-budget shortfall

The Senate in Pennsylvania, US, has approved by 39-11 a $2-per-pack cigarette tax for Philadelphia to help close the School District’s budget gap, according to a story in the Philadelphia Public School Notebook.

Superintendent William Hite was quoted as saying that with the cigarette tax and an earlier-approved one percent sales tax surcharge for schools, the District would net more than $170 million “in recurring and predictable revenue instead of one-time funding”.

The notebook story said that providing it were implemented in October (the story was written before the governor had signed the bill, though he had promised to do so quickly), the cigarette tax was expected to generate $49 million this year for schools and as much as $80 million annually until 2019, when the cigarette tax provision is due to expire.

The sales tax surcharge provides the District with a fixed amount of $120 million annually. Both taxes are on Philadelphia residents only, but they required state approval.

Hite said the District had been counting on receiving this revenue just to balance this year’s bare-bones budget, and that failure by the state to act on the tax would have triggered another round of mass layoffs.

With the anticipated proceeds from the new tax and $32 million in cuts made in August, the District’s budget is balanced, according to District spokesperson Fernando Gallard. “But as we keep saying, what we have in schools is inadequate at best.”

The story, at http://thenotebook.org/blog/147706/2-pack-cigarette-tax-finally-approved, is notable for the number of people who are thanked for making the cigarette tax possible and for the absence of any thanks for the smokers who will pay the tax.