Pennsylvanians Give Tax Rebates to Schools

About 20 checks pass across Grace Genovese’s desk each day.

Some come with cards and notes saying “it’s the right thing to do,” others with nothing at all. Some are postmarked in the suburbs, others from the poorest of city neighborhoods. Almost all are for $100.

Some Pennsylvania residents, convinced that a one-time state tax rebate was an election-year ploy, are giving their $100 rebate checks to schools.

Philadelphia schools, where Genovese is a secretary, have received hundreds of the 2.5 million checks being mailed by the state Department of Revenue. A few suburban districts have received a handful of checks.

“We think it’s great. That’s exactly the point in giving people their own money--to do with it what they want,” said Tim Reeves, a spokesman for Gov. Tom Ridge.

Donors say they are trying to make a statement.

“Our governor announced the surplus, saying they had met all the needs of the state. . . . I knew that wasn’t right. They hadn’t met all their needs,” said the Rev. William Stone, 74, of Philadelphia. Stone and his wife, Dot, sent their check to the school system.

Ridge devised the $330-million tax rebate as a means to offset local property taxes.

Some have criticized the rebate as an election-year gimmick to boost Ridge’s fellow Republicans, noting that the first batch of checks was distributed just a month before the vote.

“I was offended by it, but I was even more offended that my state senator was trying to use it” in his campaign, Stone said. “It’s as though I was going to the voting both and he was handing me a buck.”

Many others echoed Stone’s sentiment in their letters to the Philadelphia School District, using words like “irresponsible” and “appalling” to describe the rebates.

Reeves, the governor’s spokesman, said the state is a leader in spending on education and that some special interest groups were trying to push an agenda with the tax rebate. “We absolutely don’t begrudge anybody for giving their tax rebate to schools or anything else. It’s their money,” he said.

And if the Philadelphia schools get more, it’s just fine with Genovese. “I’m having a ball reading the letters,” she said.