CHERRY TWP — Moniteau School District has already approved its calendar for the 2026-27 school year. Meanwhile, superintendent Aubrie Schnelle said planning for next year’s budget will begin in the next month.

All while there are still no state funds for this year’s budget.

Austin Blauser, Moniteau’s business manager, told the school board at its Monday, Oct. 27, meeting that at this point last year, the district already had received just over $2.7 million in education funding from the state.

Monday marked more than 100 days of the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s budget impasse, a situation preventing public school districts from receiving millions of dollars in operating funds. By this point, multiple local school districts have openly said they are prepared to take out loans to continue operating should the impasse last into the new year.

Moniteau had anticipated $23.79 million in revenue for this year’s district budget. About $15.53 million of that — 65% — was to come from the state.

Moniteau, along with other school districts in Butler County, have repeatedly taken issue with the fact that, if they have to take out a loan to cover basic costs, the state does not reimburse for lost interest rates.

“The big thing that we need to understand, somewhere between $2.7 and $3 million, that’s what we’ve come up on now. With 4% interest, which we can get, we’re in arrears, just on interest, about $120,000,” Panza said. “For us, $120,000, that translates to 2 mills, which we’ll never see. Who’s gonna make that up? The taxpayers.”

Panza credited Schnelle and Blauser, along with other Moniteau officials, for working to keep things steady at Moniteau amid the impasse.

Moniteau officials, along with many others districts in the county, have been critical of politics getting in the way of the budget approval. Moniteau has also sent letters and reached out to legislators urging them to approve the budget.

But Blauser said he had heard no new updates on the budget’s progress as of Monday night.

“And think about this, the governor, by law, has to make a presentation in February for his own budget proposal. And we haven’t done anything. We don’t have this one done,” Panza said. “I called Sen. (Scott) Hutchinson’s office to say, ‘Come on.’”