{"id":137611,"date":"2026-03-13T18:47:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T18:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/137611\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T18:47:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T18:47:06","slug":"philadelphia-school-district-proposes-225-million-in-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/137611\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia School District proposes $225 million in budget cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>The School District of Philadelphia has proposed $225 million in budget cuts for the 2026-27 school year, including eliminating 220 building substitute positions, to address ongoing deficit.\n<\/p>\n<p>How did we get here?<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia schools are <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-school-district-deficit-budget\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">facing a $300 million structural deficit<\/a>.\u00a0 This lack of funding stems from \u201cchronic underfunding and the loss of federal COVID-19 relief funds,\u201d according to Superintendent Tony B. Watlington.\n<\/p>\n<p>If approved, the district will implement the $225 million in cuts next fall and an additional $20 million each following year, with the goal of eliminating the deficit entirely by the 2028-29 school year.\n  <\/p>\n<p>The proposed cuts will also prevent any loss of teachers to the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-school-district-closures-plan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">18 schools set to close<\/a> under the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philasd.org\/fpp\/#fppprocess\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facilities Plan<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNavigating a budget deficit is difficult and requires tough decisions,\u201d Watlington said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philasd.org\/blog\/2026\/03\/13\/26budgetupdate\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a> Friday. \u201cThis kind of challenge is not exclusive to Philadelphia \u2013 there are public school districts across the country having similar experiences.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>What is getting cut?<\/p>\n<p>The proposed $225 million in cuts is divided into two separate categories: central office cuts and school-based cuts. At the central office, the district wants to freeze and remove 130 vacant positions, as well as implement budget efficiencies, a\u00a0 $139 million cost-saving measure.\n<\/p>\n<p>At schools, the budget cuts will affect personnel.\n<\/p>\n<p>The proposal would eliminate all 220 building substitutes and would reassign 340 school-based positions, with impacted employees moving into other openings within the district. These alterations would save $56 million.\n<\/p>\n<p>Substitutes may be assigned to fill other vacant positions, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chalkbeat.org\/philadelphia\/2026\/03\/13\/plan-to-close-budget-deficit-focuses-on-substitutes-and-central-office\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to Chief Financial Officer Mike Herbstman<\/a>.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[223,69,71,70,8973],"class_list":["post-137611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-pennsylvania-education","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}