State Budget Resolution Provides Relief To Philadelphia School District
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Now that a 9-month long Pennsylvania budget stalemate is over, school district's across the commonwealth are finally learning how much they'll receive in state funding this year.
This has been welcomed news for the leadership at the Philadelphia School District. This money has been tied up for months now and the School District of Philadelphia will receive about $50 million more than it did last year. The schools are expected to receive about $700 million that was tied up during the budget impasse.
"We are pleased and it's welcomed relief," Superintendent William Hite. "We were always able to get through most of the year and that's because we borrowed a lot of money. Now, what the rest of these moneys will do is allow us to repay those short term borrows."
The district borrowed some $575 million to get by. It will have to pay about $5 million - $8 million in interest.
This news comes as a report out of the Rutgers Graduate School of Education named Philadelphia as continually one of the most fiscally distressed large urban school districts in the country.
Hite credited teachers, principals and staffs for their handling of the crisis.
With these additional funds, the school district budget is projected to be $1.4 billion this year.
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