|
(Click here to return to the Metro-York content depot.)
Metro-York Municipal Recommendations
1. Establish a Metro-York consolidated police department.
Just as criminals are not constrained by municipal boundaries, our police should not be hamstrung by them, or by the uncertainty of annual budget debates. This department should be created using a model more permanent than a contract between municipalities – assuring that its viability would not be threatened by inflexible funding formulas. Township, Borough and City officials should not be satisfied simply with contributing certain percentages to a pot; rather, they should identify and establish a separate revenue source, such as a Community Safety tax, but not a property tax add-on. Work is already underway on this recommendation. The York City, Spring Garden, Springettsbury, York Area Regional and West Manchester Township police departments are already engaged in the conversation, but participation would ideally go well beyond these departments. (Click here for background and research footnotes.)
2. Engage in additional meaningful regional planning, ideally incorporating all of the municipalities in the heart of York County.
YorkCounts concludes that integrated land use, infrastructure and transportation planning must be the foundation for determining how our region will look in the future. From sewers to zoning, some of our communities have developed excellent plans within their own borders; others have established strong inter-municipal plans; in both cases, elected leaders and administrators should be commended for their innovative efforts. Regional planning would strengthen the York area from an economic development perspective. Also, state law already empowers communities to plan regionally. Now the best of the existing plans should be coordinated, enhanced and integrated into a true comprehensive plan for the Metro-York region. In addition to land use, infrastructure and transportation elements, a truly comprehensive plan should address at least two more issues: housing affordability (no matter what their income level… people should be able to have choices for quality, affordable housing throughout the region) and tax consequences (see the next recommendation). (Click here for background and research footnotes.)
3. Reform local taxation through a local tax study commission.
The current system of property taxes, with inherent “winners and losers,” does not serve our taxpayers or governments and is not in the best long-term economic interest of the Metro-York region. It’s also not the only way of doing things. In greater Minneapolis/St. Paul, to cite one example, a portion of the real estate tax revenue from new commercial developments is shared across the region. Revenues could be distributed to municipalities based on their percentage of nonprofit real estate and/or to school districts based on the amount of residential real estate in their tax bases. The Metro-York Municipal Workgroup liked this model, but other models could be considered. A local tax study commission should be established, to include elected officials from each municipality and school district in the Metro-York region, to study and adopt an approach that is equitable and stable – and serves the region’s long-term interests. We must also ask our state delegation for legislation to permit adoption of a new tax model. (Click here for background and research footnotes.)
4. Study ideas for modernizing York County’s form of government.
The current structure and scope of county government may not meet the needs of a modern, changing county. The Metro-York Municipal Workgroup posed several questions: Are three people enough to represent a county with more than 416,000 residents? Is county government as effective and accountable as it could be? Why have some of Pennsylvania’s rapidly growing counties looked to change their form of county government, while others have not? While the Workgroup did not reach a consensus on exactly which form of government would be best for York County, participants agreed that it’s time for a countywide task force to study the question seriously. (Click here for background and research footnotes.)
Metro-York Education Recommendations
1. Establish a permanent and well-funded Metro-York Schools Consortium to research, develop and implement new public school models and make all schools in York County truly world-class.
We must break out of the 19th century education model that does not fit 21st century students. No one school district in the region is large enough to invest, on its own, in the type of research and development needed to create truly world-class schools. One or more area colleges should convene a team of the best and brightest minds – superintendents and administrators, business leaders and others – to serve as a “think tank” focused on improving student performance, bolstering mentoring capacities, encouraging parental involvement and outlining a cutting-edge curriculum – aligned with workforce needs and unrestrained by time or geography. This group will have to be funded in order to enable it to do more than just talk. It should issue reports and recommendations of its own after extensive research and eventually push for implementation of its ideas. (Click here for background and research footnotes.)
2. Attack the root problem: a school district can’t succeed when poverty and its related problems are concentrated the way they are in the York City schools.
In York city, 85 percent of public school students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (which, according to government classifications, means they are living in poverty). Across the country, numerous strategies are being employed to de-concentrate school poverty in a given area, and it’s time that one or more of them be tried here. A task force must be formed to consider, prioritize and plan the implementation of:
- New academic programming that appeals to parents throughout York County, with the added benefit that it would result in interaction between city, suburban and rural students. Enrollment would always be by choice.
- A "student exchange" could allow individual students from the city to go to school in the suburbs, or those from the suburbs to go to the city, for a limited period of time such as one year. Such a program would broaden academic experiences and, perhaps more importantly, break down the barriers between people.
- A public magnet school could be open to students across York County and could be funded by those districts. It could be located centrally, but apart from any existing schools. Such a school would offer new academic opportunities to children inside and outside the city. It would also ease overcrowding in the suburban districts.
- A public charter school could house a maximum of 49 percent city students and 51 percent non-city students – potentially, the children of parents who work in the city. This school would be located in the city.
- A public school choice program could grant some number of York city kindergarteners admission to other districts’ elementary schools each year. Once there, they would receive special support to stay, holding the other districts harmless financially.
- An education-based incentive for middle-class parents to return to the city with their children. Scholarships can be powerful incentives. The Kalamazoo Promise is one example. It’s providing four-year scholarships to graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools to colleges in Michigan. The program has dual educational and economic appeal, as the city’s population decline has reversed, housing values have jumped and businesses have relocated to Kalamazoo. (Click here for background and research footnotes.)
3. Invest $3 million per year in each of the next ten years in “intensive care” for at-risk students: intense, targeted programming to at-risk students, as they enter grade school to keep them focused and/or in middle and high school to keep them from thinking that dropping out is an option.
The first two recommendations are aimed at improving the educational system over the medium- and long-term. What’s important to say out loud, and understand, is that addressing the immediate needs of today’s at-risk youth is a moral imperative. A sudden infusion of money won’t fix the system, but it would help many kids now. Hundreds of teenagers are dropping out and hundreds of kindergarteners are entering school under-prepared for learning. There’s also a socioeconomic imperative; millions of dollars are being spent on a justice system that is dealing with a glut of dropouts. This is not a call to create a new program from scratch to address their needs; instead, this is an urgent call for investment in and the implementation of one or more existing programs identified as the best by education experts. (Click here for background and research footnotes.)
4. Use the soon-to-be-established Office of Workforce Development as a catalyst to strengthen relationships between employers and the Metro-York workforce.
Just as there’s an urgent need to address the immediate needs of today’s at-risk youth (see above), it is imperative that pathways out of poverty be created for adults who find themselves alienated from employment today. YorkCounts is pleased to announce that a recommendation it made in 2004 is about to become a reality: a county Office of Workforce Development is being established (at the York County Economic Development Corporation). YorkCounts’ Metro-York recommendation is that this Office not only support employers in the context of business needs and the county’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). It must also, as a result, create new opportunities for potential employees, with an emphasis on reaching the hardest-to-serve, chronically underemployed, low-income populations — highlighting education and training programs and linking those who complete such programs with York County hiring managers. Together, employers, trainees and the Office of Workforce Development can embrace a workforce environment that recognizes the need for and value of lifelong learning, skills development and diversity. (Click here for background and research footnotes.)
(Click here to return to the Metro-York content depot.)
|
