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Schools Start New Year Without State Funding:
School Administrators Ask State to Get Budget Done, But Get It Done Right
Schools across the state start opening this week and next, but the joy of a new beginning for 1.8 million Pennsylvania students is tinged with program and staff cutbacks, economic uncertainty about the year ahead.
Local school administrators joined with the PSFC at the State Capitol today to discuss the impact of the state budget impasse and missed state funding on school districts, and to tell legislators that school districts need a state budget – but, more important, they need the right state budget, one that recognizes and meets the needs of public schools to serve our children and thereby the Commonwealth’s future.
School districts will miss their second monthly state subsidy payment due tomorrow because of the state budget stalemate. Between that and the missed payment last month, districts will now be out almost $1.3 billion. School districts receive monthly subsidy payments from the state, known as unipay, on the last Thursday of every month. The payment includes (among other things) state funding for special education, transportation, vocational education, debt service for construction and the single largest allocation of state support - basic education.
Video and remarks from the news conference:
Fred Botterbusch, School Director of Dallastown Area School District and President of PSBA
Text version of remarks
Laura Cowburn, Assistant to the Superintendent for Business Services/Board Secretary, Columbia Borough School District and President
Text version of remarks
Dr. Richard Fry, Superintendent of the Big Spring School District
Text version of remarks
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