York County’s 275th Anniversary Quilt
Nancy Cheris of the York Quilters Guild talks on Aug. 26. 2025 about the quilt the group made to commemorate the county’s 275th anniversary.
School is back in session and lawmakers still have not passed a budget, which is costing schools money as the impasse continues.
“The bottom line is kids are held hostage; school districts are held hostage,” said Ed Albert, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, on a call Wednesday about the state budget, which was due on June 30.
He said a budget will be passed eventually; however, the delay is causing some districts’ critical expenditures and more.
Albert also said he is struggling with wrapping his head around the fact that the budget wasn’t passed on time.
At the end of August, the state’s teacher union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, held a news conference in the Capitol building.
Running out of funds: Some York County school district officials have mentioned during school board meetings that they are fine for now, thanks to the tax money coming in. But that is not true for all the districts in the state, including rural districts, which Albert said are running out of funds.
PSEA reported the state has missed about $1.75 billion in payments to school districts.
Some school districts have taken out loans to cover the shortfall. The City of Lancaster School District had to take out a $35 million loan to cover the bills, according to Christina Rojas, who is a speech-language pathologist in the Lancaster district. She said the loan will cost an extra $200,000 in fees and interest, which is money that could have been spent on teachers or services for students with autism.
“Instead, it’s being wasted because our kids are being used as pawns in a political game,” she said.
Albert said on Wednesday that the districts can’t tax their way out of this problem.
“When these schools exhaust their tax dollars, they have nowhere else to turn,” he said, calling on state lawmakers to pass a budget.
School vouchers: There are a few pieces that are holding up the budget passing. PSEA said school vouchers were among those pieces and reported that state Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland County, said on a radio show that she will hold up the budget until lawmakers agree to her plan.
“Our kids are not bargaining chips,” said Aaron Chapin, union president, referencing how there has been a push for more money to be used for school vouchers.
Chapin called on the senators to pass a budget and invest in the public schools and continue working on fixing the funding issues.
Adequacy gap: Another issue that has schools and education officials worried is whether the budget will include money to help lessen the adequacy gap, as it did the previous year, when $500 million was allocated to that issue.
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“Our constitution requires lawmakers to fund public schools adequately and equitably,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr, Education Law Center executive director. She added that instead, the elected officials aren’t doing their job, which is to pass a budget.
“Pennsylvania children don’t get a do-over for the years they spend in underfunded classrooms,” she said.
The ELC called for the elected officials to quickly pass a budget that invests at least another $500 million to shorten the gap, increases funding for basic and special education and also enacts a cyber charter funding reform.
Cyber charter tuition: In recent years, school officials such as Forest Area Superintendent Amanda Hetrick in Forest County have shared how much cyber charter tuition is costing their districts. In Forest Area, the district pays more than $22,000 for a student and more than $45,000 for a special education student.
Hetrick said in August that if lawmakers could reform the tuition and set a fair flat rate, it could help strengthen her district’s reserves and keep the money focused on the classrooms and students.
While the local districts were still working on their budgets, Dover Area and West Shore raised alarms about how much of the budget goes to cyber school tuition during school board meetings and on social media.
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