Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) President, Aaron Chapin, issued a statement commending Gov. Josh Shapiro and lawmakers for securing a bipartisan state budget that includes significant investments in public education.
The budget includes a historic increase in K-12 education funding and over a billion new state dollars for Pennsylvania’s public schools. This significant investment is a step toward fixing Pennsylvania’s broken public school funding system.
PSEA’s top priority is to secure a cost-of-living adjustment for more than 40,000 retired educators and support professionals who have not seen a COLA in their pensions since 2002. The union is disappointed that lawmakers did not include a COLA in the final state budget agreement but will continue to advocate for retired school staff members.
Going forward, PSEA will collaborate with all stakeholders to implement the multi-year plan included in the Basic Education Funding Commission’s majority report to fix the public school funding system in Pennsylvania.
Chapin, who is also a Stroudsburg Area middle school teacher, represents approximately 177,000 active and retired educators and school employees, student teachers, higher education staff, and healthcare workers in Pennsylvania through PSEA.
The message also includes a notice that the individual sender is responsible for the message’s content, and it does not reflect PSEA’s position or policy.