Public school districts were among the winners in the state’s latest budget, with Lehigh Valley school districts seeing state funding increases that ranged from just over 1% in Southern Lehigh to almost 14% in Whitehall-Coplay.
The budget continues the state’s efforts to meet its obligations after a lawsuit found Pennsylvania’s school funding system to be in violation of the state’s constitutional requirement to equitably fund public education.
State Rep. Peter Schweyer, chair of the Pennsylvania House Education Committee, credited both lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro for passing a “balanced, bold, and bipartisan budget at puts students and communities first,” in a July 12 news release.
“The new spending plan includes $565 million for the third installment of adequacy and tax equity funding, a $50 million increase for basic education funding, and a $50 million increase for special education funding,” the news release states.
The adequacy funds, designed to use state money to account for how differences in property tax revenue can create imbalances in how much money school districts receive, show up in Ready-To-Learn block grants given to qualifying districts. Basic education funding and special education funding are two other buckets of state money that lawmakers allocate each year to local districts.
Allentown schools will receive an additional $22.8 million in state funding under the latest budget, an 8.9% increase and by far the largest increase in terms of dollars received. The Bethlehem Area School District will receive an additional $5.1 million in state funding, a 6.7% increase.
Here’s how much each Lehigh Valley school district gained: