Butler County schools grateful state budget included long-discussed adequacy gap funds
Had the Karns City Area School District known the amount it would receive in adequacy gap funding, it may not have needed to raise property taxes.
The leaders of the northern Butler County district, alongside those from Pennsylvania’s more than 500 public school districts that range greatly in wealth and access to resources, learned earlier this month that the state allocated an extra $500 million to close the “adequacy gap” — or the funding disparities between schools.
“It does make a difference,” Eric Ritzert, Karns City Area’s superintendent, said.
Last year, the district received $116,000 in adequacy gap funding. This year, the district received $224,000.
Ritzert said when his district slightly raised taxes for this school year, about $150,000 in new revenue was directed to a newly created elementary life skills program. Extra adequacy funds could have been used instead.
“Had we known the budget would include this, had that guarantee in June, we could have made a different decision. The timing is more important than people realize,” Ritzert said. “If we knew of that funding when crafting our budget, we could make more strategic decisions.”
The state’s Senate and House of Representatives passed a $50.1 billion budget that was signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro earlier this month, ending the impasse that lasted more than four months. For 135 days, school districts statewide did not receive anticipated state funds due to the standoff, leading some to prepare to take out loans to cover operational costs.
With the budget now in place, funds like adequacy supplements offer schools a chance to spend on resources previously not in the picture.
“Any increase in state funding is going to be beneficial for us,” Slippery Rock superintendent Alphonso Angelucci said.
The adequacy gap is the result of funding disparities between well-resourced schools with a wealthy property tax base, and underfunded districts made up by residents who can’t handle the same tax burden.
Seneca Valley School District, which includes over 7,000 students and is the seventh-largest employer in Butler County, passed a 2025-26 budget of almost $180 million. Meanwhile, schools like Allegheny-Clarion Valley, Moniteau and Karns City have a fraction of that enrollment, and fiscal year budgets of $20 to 30 million.
Schools started receiving these supplement payments from the 2024 budget. It happened after a ruling from the Commonwealth Court found that Pennsylvania’s funding system for public schools was unconstitutional and inequitable. The ruling led to hearings and negotiations between Democratic and Republican legislators on how to come up with a dollar amount to fill the gap.
In 2024, a commission made up of legislators came up with an adequacy target baseline for what school districts need to be able to serve their students. The target sets a baseline for per-student spending. It can include additional spending-based factors of a district’s student body, like poverty and level of English proficiency.
If a district spends less than the resulting number, it is missing its adequacy target and has an “adequacy gap,” according to the report. The formula passed the commission along partisan lines, eight Democrats to seven Republicans.
The budget passed in 2024 acknowledged a grand total target number for closing the adequacy gap: $4.5 billion.
However, in the 2025 state budget that was just passed, all of Pennsylvania’s public school districts were guaranteed at least $50,000 in adequacy supplement funds.
For instance, Knoch School District, with around 2,000 students and a roughly $40 million budget, received $50,000 in adequacy gap funding from the state. It will help slightly shrink a budget deficit, according to business manager Jamie Van Lenten.
According to data from the state Department of Education, Butler Area School District received $2.38 million in adequacy supplement funding. Butler has around 6,100 students.
According to the state Department of Education, Seneca Valley will receive $338,320 in adequacy supplement funding.
Mars Area School District, with around 3,500 students and a $65 million budget, will get $1,420,810.
Moniteau will get $299,571. Slippery Rock will get $596,712. Freeport will get $295,271.
“It’s a complex formula, it factors in economics, local taxes residents can expect to pay, amount of state funding, also overall enrollment,” Ritzert said. “We’re a smaller school, our amount would be smaller compared to others who are larger, that extra $224,000 is definitely significant to us.”
School officials have said while the budget is not perfect, and while the money may not be some huge amount in the grand scheme of things, it’s money that was not budgeted for that can go toward needs.
“Think about $300,000 out of $25 million,” Austin Blauser, Moniteau’s business manger, said. “But it has some impact, and we’re definitely glad to see it.
“Things have been up in the air with adequacy funding, this will help out. There was no budget for an extra four months; anything we can get, we’re going to try to recoup,” Blauser added.
