Summit Hill Borough Councilman David Wargo addressed the Mahoning Township Supervisors at their April meeting, and asked the supervisors to pass a resolution demanding that state government leaders enforce their own legislation involving the Fair Funds Formula which helps fund area school districts.

According to Wargo, Panther Valley School District has been underfunded annually by approximately $10.5 million over the past 10 years that the should be receiving but are not.

“It’s not just Panther Valley,” Wargo said. “Every school district in the commonwealth is underfunded according to the state’s own laws.

“Article 3, Paragraph 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution requires the Legislature to provide equitable and fair funding for all schools in the commonwealth to support the public education system. What they’ve done is that they have taken a formula that they passed into law, and only partially applied it to funding for our school districts, forcing the local communities to come up with the balance of those funds needed to run the school districts.”

“This resolution that we passed on Feb. 21, 2021, demands that our legislators and our governor stop dangling property tax reform in front of us and start enacting their own laws. Their laws require them to provide more funding to the schools than what they are doing right now. What I’m asking you to do is pass this resolution, standing with other municipalities in Carbon County who have already passed it. It’s time for them to do something right and do it now.”

The supervisors recommended that township solicitor Tom Nanovic review the resolution and they will present it for a vote at the next meeting in May.