We are glad for those districts in our region that will be able to avoid property tax increases this year. Of course we also worry about friends, family and neighbors in those districts that find it necessary to increase their millage rates.

As we have noted before, the signs are clear that Pennsylvania needs systemic change. Pennsylvanians cannot afford to continue to see their burden grow.

Part of the changes our state needs is a greater commitment to funding education at the state level. The state’s courts ruled years ago that such heavy reliance on property taxes leads to disproportionate service — and that such enduring inequality is unconstitutional.

Another part of the changes Pennsylvania’s taxpayers need — and a part we have editorialized about before — is greater consolidation.

Pennsylvania has about 500 school districts. Lycoming County includes all or most of eight different school districts.

We believe there are many locations, in our own backyards and across Pennsylvania, where administrative functions are being duplicated, triplicated or worse. Merging school districts would help alleviate the costs of paying for the personnel performing these duplicated or triplicated tasks.

While some have floated the possibility of county-wide school districts, we have come to believe over the years that reviewing and assessing mergers needs to be done on a case-by-case basis and at a smaller scale, at least to start with, if we are ever going to see progress.

Even within the school districts as they exist today, we believe that administrative staffing has grown at an unsustainable — and unjustifiable — pace. School boards should diligently look toward which administrative positions can be eliminated to get projected costs lower.

While there is not one comprehensive solution to education spending, consolidation and the state government accepting its obligations would significantly help school boards resist the assumption that property tax increases are the only way forward.