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A prod to get moving on new state budget

2 min read

The 2015-16 school year has begun. Teachers are in front of their classrooms. Students are at their desks. Buses are running, It’s a scene that’s repeated every September.

There’s only one thing that’s missing: a big chunk of money.

As the state budget stalemate staggers into the fall – the budget deadline was June 30 – school districts in Washington and Greene counties, and across the entire commonwealth, are having to think long and hard about how they will pay their bills if the funds they usually receive from Harrisburg don’t materialize anytime soon. If the deadlock isn’t broken, it will have an adverse impact on the education of our children and make the budget standoff something more than just a political sideshow and a nettlesome abstraction.

In the Aug. 26 Observer-Reporter, it was reported that the Bethlehem-Center School District had to borrow $2 million to kick off its school year. The Burgettstown School District is paying its bills by using property tax revenue as it arrives. Without it, the district wouldn’t be able to meet its payroll obligations. “We can’t go on like this, and a lot of schools are in the same boat,” said Jamie O’Donnell, the business manager of the Burgettstown district.

Other districts in Washington and Greene counties are holding their own thanks to their fund balances, but could be in trouble if there’s no state budget when Halloween or Thanksgiving roll around. And it’s not out of the question that could happen – when Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell was skirmishing with Republican lawmakers in the Legislature over the budget in 2003, his first year in office, it was finally settled just before Christmas.

If nothing else serves as a sufficient prod, the plight of schools and social service agencies in Pennsylvania should get lawmakers moving. Brian Uplinger, superintendent of Central Greene School District, put it well: “This is about children, not who can scream the loudest.”

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