Pennsylvania state budget crisis

Pennsylvania has gone since the end of June without a state budget. Governor Tom Wolf and the state congress have been working hard since July, trying to come up with a balanced budget. Before Christmas, Governor Wolf signed a budget, but still lined item veto (canceling or nullifying) a few items in it. During the six-month stalemate of no budget, some schools in Scranton, Old Forge and Riverside feared the closing of their schools because no money was flowing in to help.

The reason the state budget went unsigned for six months was because each party in Harrisburg wants different things. Wolf wants an increase in tax revenue by about $1 billion to deliver a boost to education and align revenue to spending that he promised during his campaign. The State Republicans want to see changes toward pensions for state and public school employees. The House Republicans don’t want an increase in income or sales tax, unless they reduce property taxes. If there was no bill signed by the end of the school year, Brent Kessler, Central York School District’s business manager and board secretary, said that we would have several options to look into.

Kessler said the district was not affected by the six-month stalemate. “We receive so little state funding to begin with; only 20 percent of our entire $80+ million budget is funded by the state,” Kessler said. When Wolf signed parts of the passed state budget, it released $23.4 billion of the $30.3 billion budget. “This budget is wrong for Pennsylvania and our legislators--the people we elected to serve us--need to own up to this. They need to do their jobs,” Wolf said when announcing Lined-vetoing some of the budget.

Even though other schools have been facing shut downs, Central could have gone until June 2016 without any state budget. At that point, if it did occur, that’s when the district would have to look towards making cuts. “We are pleased they have finally passed a budget, although not complete. At least state funding at last year’s 2014-15 level is being processed to schools,” Kessler said. At December’s School Board meeting, the board approved a preliminary budget that was presented, giving an outlook towards the 2016-17 school year.

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