It was greatly disappointing to learn from a recent report by researchers at Pennsylvania’s Education Law Center that state schools — including those in Butler County — are increasingly relying more on local tax dollars to fund special education programs in the wake of stagnant state funding in recent years.

As a result, communities across the state have become more dependent on state legislators to obtain money for these programs.

Meanwhile, operating costs for the programs are rising at a much faster rate than the existing level of state funding.

According to the report, special education costs in the state increase by approximately $200 million per year. Between 2008 and 2016, state funding increased by $72 million, but special education costs grew by $1.5 billion.

In 2008, the state picked up 32.3 percent of the cost for special education programs, but by 2016 that number had fallen to 23 percent.

Taxpayers have been footing most of the bill for special education costs, while school districts have been forced to cut other programs.

Budget sessions in school districts have, not surprisingly, become frustrating for parents and stressful for officials facing tough decisions as their budgets are stretched thin.

We applaud local schools for making due with diminishing resources. Brian White, Butler’s superintendent, said that program costs are “not even legally allowed to be part of the decision” regarding special education programs.

Butler County educators have also said that the lack of funding has, so far, not negatively affected the county’s special education programs.

More than 270,000 students in Pennsylvania require special education classes and, in the Butler School District, 1,218 of its more than 6,300 students are in need of these services.

Educators say that the current state of special education funding in the Keystone State is unsustainable.

There is a possible light at the end of the tunnel.

Reynelle Brown Staley, a policy attorney who led the Education Law Center’s report, said that the state has a special education funding commission that convenes every five years and is due to meet this year.

A resulting assessment could encourage state legislators to increase funding for special education.

But there is no guarantee. State leaders — who, according to the report, have not sent enough money through a special education funding formula implemented by the state five years ago — need to address what appears to be a looming special education funding crisis.

We can’t fail the state’s children who need these programs.

Speaking of state leaders, it was reported last week that legislators, judges and executive branch officials will receive a 1.6 percent pay increase that will go into effect during the holidays.

Pennsylvania already ranks second in the nation for the highest-paid state lawmakers and first for the highest-paid governor, Tom Wolf, who donates 100 percent of his salary to charity.

While we understand that the raises are meant to reflect the cost of living, some of the money — which is automatically adjusted each year following the passage of a 1995 law — spent on Pennsylvania’s elected officials, who are already well compensated, could be allocated for the state’s needs — for example, the lack of funding for special education.

Perhaps it’s also time to revisit the fact that Pennsylvania’s legislature is one of the nation’s largest and most expensive and reconsider legislation to shrink it.

In the meantime, parents should continue to put pressure on their state representatives and notify them that funding for special education programs is a high priority that could decide how they vote.