Public posting of school staff wages

Summary#

HB 2851 would amend Pennsylvania’s Public School Code of 1949 by adding a requirement for annual public reporting on education support professionals. Its stated purpose is to make employment information available to the public; that is a goal, not a guaranteed result. The bill is introduced and is not current law.

  • The Department of Education must post the information by October 1, 2027, and every October 1 after that. The bill would take effect 60 days after enactment.
  • School entities—school districts, cyber charter schools, charter schools, regional charter schools, area career and technical schools, and intermediate units—must report the information. Contractors providing non-instructional services must report specified information about their workers, broken down by school entity.
  • Reports would cover ten job classifications: instructional paraprofessionals or education assistants; non-instructional paraprofessionals; secretaries; bus drivers, aides or mechanics; maintenance; technology; custodians; nurse assistants; crossing guards or other safety workers; and personal care assistants.
  • For each classification, the department would post wage rates, weekly hours excluding overtime, work-year type, and counts broken down by gender, race or ethnicity, years worked for the school entity, original hire date, and employment status. Status categories include active, military leave, sick or family and medical leave, and furlough.
  • The department must use existing databases and reporting systems to the extent possible, publish information in an accessible way, explain it, and provide a feature for comparing at least four school entities. Information must be in aggregate form except where the bill requires breakdowns.

What it means for you#

  • School entities and service contractors: They would have to report information in the form, manner, and by the deadline set by the Department of Education. Contractors report information on specified job classifications and employment details, broken down by school entity.
  • Education support professionals: Information about their job classification, wage rate, hours, work year, and employment status could be included in public aggregate reports. The bill does not require individual names to be posted.
  • Public: You would be able to view and compare the reported information on the department’s website.
  • Employees and employers: The bill does not directly change wages, hours, hiring, or employment rights. It creates reporting and public-posting duties.

Money#

No publicly available information on the cost.

  • The bill assigns reporting and posting work to the Department of Education and requires school entities and some contractors to report information. It gives no cost estimate or funding amount.
  • It requires use of existing databases and reporting systems where possible. The bill does not say what additional work or expense that would involve.
  • It does not set fees or fines, or change wage rates.

What is unclear#

  • The bill does not specify the reporting form, manner, or deadline; the department would determine these.
  • “Wage rate” is not defined, so the bill does not say exactly how pay should be reported.
  • The definition of education support professional refers to terms in section 1101, and contractor-related terms refer to section 528(d). The Public School Code text needed to check those definitions against current law was not supplied.
  • The bill does not explain how the required breakdowns would be handled when a group is small, or what privacy protections would apply.
  • It does not set data-checking rules or say how errors would be corrected. It also does not say how the new reporting would relate to any existing reporting.

Case for#

  • A possible argument for the bill is that public, comparable information could help people understand staffing and employment conditions across school entities.
  • Requiring annual posting and a comparison feature could make differences easier to see than if information were available only in separate reports.
  • Requiring use of existing databases and reporting systems where possible may limit the need to build a separate data system.

Case against#

  • One concern is that school entities and contractors would face new reporting work, but the bill gives no estimate of the time or cost.
  • The bill requires detailed breakdowns, including race or ethnicity and original hire date. It does not explain how small groups would be protected from being identifiable in published data.
  • It is unclear whether differences between entities would be easy to compare consistently, since the bill does not define “wage rate” or set detailed data standards.