Back to school should mean back to work for Legislature, too
The start of a new school year is a busy time, filled with sometimes conflicting emotions.
Anticipation meets anxiety as students, parents, teachers and school administrators alike plan for a new academic year; with new subjects, new students and much more. One thing is missing this year, though.
A state budget.
That’s because, as we have written so many times over the last several months, the state Legislature has failed to pass a budget. The deadline was June 30.
Now, 67 days later, and still there is no budget.
In late August, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star quoted Gov. Josh Shapiro as saying a budget deal was close. That’s the same thing he’s been saying since before the state blew past its deadline — for the second time in three years.
Now, real harm is being done and school districts are missing both state funding and federal funds that would be disbursed by the state.
“I feel like we’re going to be good, but if this goes on for months and months, then everybody’s not going to be in a good place,” Freeport superintendent Ian Magness said at the school board’s Sept. 3 meeting.
Yet we seem no closer to a resolution.
Our schools and our students, not to mention the rest of our communities, deserve better than this. Lawmakers are failing to do their constitutionally mandated duty.
It’s inexcusable.
— JK
