As of Sept. 8, Pennsylvania remains one of only two states to not have a form of budget in place. 

For the school district, 70% of the funding comes from the state government. 

“Of our 125 million budget,  almost 100 million comes from them [the state government],” district business manager Susan Franks said. 

Without the state budget, the district will not be able to receive any of the state funding. Currently, the district has been focused on local collections until the budget passes. 

“The money we received up until today has been from our local collections, tax revenue,  which is about 30 million,” Franks said. “That’s what we’ve been operating on thus far. Basically, that’s all the money we have.” 

According to Franks, payroll and direct operations cost about eight million dollars a month. 

“With just 30 million, we don’t have a whole lot of time that we can operate without reaching into some other things,” Franks said. 

The fund balance has helped to ensure the district hasn’t felt the impact of the budget not being passed. 

“We are able to couple the pay cycle that happens this Friday [Sept. 12],” Franks said. “After that, we’re going to struggle to meet some of those ends without a state budget.” 

As of Sept. 11, Harrisburg insiders gave Superintendent Brad Hatch some ‘good’ news. 

“From what we are being told, they’re [Harrisburg insiders] pretty confident that they should be able to get a budget resolution by the end of the month,” Hatch said. “That is good by all indications. So it’s just a matter of waiting until it’s passed, until money starts flowing our way.” 

Without having to liquidate or use their assets, without state funding, the district would be able to sustain for “no more than a month,” or “two more pay cycles.” 

According to Hatch, the district has provisions in place to make sure they don’t overspend. 

“Our cash flow is not what it normally is because we’re not getting our allocations from the state,” Hatch said. “We’re just kind of being cautious to make sure that we are able to fund the necessities, mainly being our personnel, making sure that we can meet payroll and our electric bill, those kinds of things.” 

The Altoona district is not the only district impacted by the state budget not being set. It impacts the entire state and every district within Pa. 

Representative Lou Schmitt remains “cautiously optimistic” for a budget in the near future. In the meantime, he feels school districts don’t have any ‘good’ options to survive until the budget is announced. 

“They [districts] could perhaps hold off on payments, but other than borrowing, holding off on payments and dipping into reserves, they don’t have many options,” Schmitt said.  

Although insiders informed the district they should have a budget by the end of the month, the district has plans to meet with state legislators in the coming week in order to receive definitive answers.