While federal aid has helped keep Pennsylvania’s school districts afloat during the pandemic, the state will have to intervene as those dollars dry up and local revenues falter amid the economic downturn, according to a new report. The report, released Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, and Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, credited the influx of federal funding for the state’s 500 school districts — $575 million this year, followed by $1.6 billion expected in the next — with subsidizing costs brought on by the pandemic. But, it warned, school districts could be facing a budget hole once the aid expires in 2023 — particularly if the money is used to backfill traditional funding streams, as during the Great Recession more than a decade ago. Many schools used that federal stimulus money to cover positions as state funding plunged; when it expired, districts were forced to make deep cuts, the effects of which endured for years.

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Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 13, 2021.