State Budget on Hold; KCSD Looking at $404,000 Hit

BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP — Pennsylvania’s 2014-15 budget is on hold as Gov. Tom Corbett presses for the state Legislature to act on public employee pension reform.

The new fiscal year began on Tuesday of this week but Corbett has elected not to sign the $29.1 billion document forwarded to him on Monday; his office said he has a 10-day period to review the budget.

Meanwhile the Keystone Central School District budget will face a better than $400,000 hole if the current proposal is signed by Corbett.

According to district business manager Susan Blesh, Keystone Central had budgeted $1,018,272 in its accountability block grant and Ready to Learn account, based on the original proposal from the Corbett administration; but the budget now on Corbett’s desk provides $614,149 for those programs, leaving a deficit of $404,123 in the new school year budget.

The district had received $325,000 in accountability funds last year, Blesh said.

The new state budget document provides no increase in the basic education subsidy for public school districts across the state.