Pension problems facing Pennsylvania school districts have come home to roost. As we wrote in a recent blog: “Unless there is agreement on pension reform legislation . . . most school districts in Pennsylvania face ruinous increases in pension funding.” To handle this increase, districts will have to raise taxes, lay off personnel, or both. And while the Commonwealth, through Act 1 of 2006, restricts a district’s ability to raise property tax rates, in Allegheny County 11 school districts, 25 percent of the total, have petitioned for an exception to this law, meaning they now have permission to increase property tax rates above the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s prescribed limit. Briefly, Act 1 of 2006 charges the Department of Education (PDE) with setting an inflation index each year that serves as a cap on each school district’s allowable millage (amount per $1,000 of taxable value) increase. Anything above this cap has to be granted an exception or go before the voters in a...