Funding impasse may force Brownsville school closure
BROWNSVILLE – The Brownsville Area School District will be forced to close its doors if the state does not adopt a budget soon, and the district’s new superintendent has already decided to pay only district employees and to ignore utility bills. Superintendent Larry Golembiewski said it is “very likely” that the district will be forced to close if the state does not adopt a budget before Christmas.
He said he thinks the district will be able to continue only until the second week of January without state funding.
“We are very weak financially right now,” Golembiewski said. “We are at the point where we will only make payroll payments. We’re not buying anything that does not have to be bought. On Monday, I will instruct the business manager not to pay the utility bills. I don’t think they will shut our lights out. They know they will get their money as soon as we get ours, but if they do, the state will have to worry about that.”
The Brownsville Area School Board approved a resolution Nov. 20 authorizing the closing of schools if the budget impasse in Harrisburg goes unresolved, effective Jan. 16.
Rep. Peter J. Daley (D-California), in response to the district’s decision to close, has sent letters to the Republican leadership in the state Senate, urging them to address the crisis and to release basic education funding to the state’s 501 school districts.
“We can no longer afford to allow this to go on,” Daley wrote. “Education is not, and should not be, a political or partisan issue. I implore you to stop this mockery of the legislative process and help our school districts before they are forced to shut their doors to the students of Pennsylvania.”
Daley said the school district relies on the state for more than 80 percent of its funding.
In September, the school board agreed to take out a $1.5 million tax anticipation loan to compensate for the lack of state funding. The board could decide to take out another loan, but Golembiewski said such a move is unlikely. “At this point it hasn’t been discussed. I think (the board) is pretty fed up with the General Assembly, so I don’t look for them to go that route,” he said.
President Rocky Brashear added, “We’re going to run out of money at some point, but it’s in the state’s lap and it’s been in their lap since June.”
“The only ones who suffer are the kids. The worst thing to do is have a break in the middle of the school year. If we close, I don’t know if it will be for a week or a month. It will depend on the state,” Golembiewski said.
If the school does close, he said, it will affect the students’ education, making the district have to extend the school year into the summer months. He said doing so could cause a problem for seniors, who will be going out either into the work force or into college. He said a closure also would pose a problem for parents of small children who would have to find child care while the schools are closed.
“This is not a one- or two-problem issue. This will affect a lot of young people’s lives in a lot of ways that they don’t realize,” he said.
Golembiewski said that closing the district also would negatively affect district employees, who would have to go without pay.
“They will have to go without pay, because we are only closing schools if there is no money to pay our employees,” he said.
The district, at its regular meeting, discussed what they should do about money owed to teachers who opted out of the district’s health benefits plan.
“We’re going to have to ask them, out of the goodness of their hearts, to wait. Hopefully, they will be good team players and they’ll wait. It’s a good chance to see who’s truly interested in the welfare of our children,” Golembiewski said.
Brashear said if it comes down to closing the schools, he expects district residents to petition their representatives and rally in Harrisburg to try to force some action. He urged parents and the local community to contact their state legislators and let them know how important this issue is to them.
Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation without a final budget. The state’s 501 school districts have missed their first three basic education payments from the state, and several districts statewide, including Connellsville Area locally, also have threatened to close. Public schools have been waiting on subsidy checks from Harrisburg for nearly four months.
This time last year, Brownsville Area had received two payments of $1.47 million each in August and October and a third in December. With the current budget stalemate, the district is $4.4 million below the budget from which it is used to working, according to Michael Huth, business manager.
Huth said the district normally receives a $1.47 million state payment every other month, beginning in August and ending in June.
According to Daley, Gov. Ed Rendell proposed investments in various early-childhood-education programs such as full-day kindergarten, smaller class sizes and improved teacher training. The state House already passed a compromise version of Rendell’s $560 million first-year education program, providing $250 million for the governor’s initiatives. Daley said the Senate’s counteroffer of $12.5 million in new funding “was an insult.”
“This situation is about as ugly as partisan politic-playing can get, and it’s happening at the expense of Pennsylvania’s children,” Daley said.