State Subsidy Scare

The state budget stalemate continues, and it looks like the legislature is going to miss another important deadline.

The state is due to dish out almost 900 million dollars to school districts statewide Thursday. But the Governor says it won't happen. That brings the total missed subsidies for PA schools to $1.3 billion.

Officials say its hurting rural and small schools most of all, because they don't have the tax base and the reserves to get through a tight spot with no help from the state. Lanny Ross is the Executive Director at the Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center. He says schools in our region have some of the highest aid ratios in the state. That means we depend more on state money.

Superintendent Rodney Green agrees. This is the second subsidy payment schools have missed.

Green says the Spring Cove School District got 2.6 million dollars by this time last year. So they're dipping into their rainy day fund. But that fund only has 2.7 million dollars to begin with, and that has them looking at the loan process. But the last time Spring Cove took out a loan when the state didn't send out the subsidies, it cost them 43 thousand dollars.

Ross says no one knows how long schools can last without help from the state, but he thinks the day will come be sooner rather than later. Ross says the state's children are at stake here and he's calling on lawmakers to get a fair budget passed soon.