{"id":204735,"date":"2026-05-28T19:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/204735\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T19:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:36:07","slug":"bensalem-school-board-calls-out-state-for-budget-crunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/204735\/","title":{"rendered":"Bensalem School Board Calls Out State For Budget Crunch"},"content":{"rendered":"

BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, PA \u2014 As the Bensalem Township School Board decides how to reduce costs before voting on its 2026-2027 budget next month, the board is hitting up Harrisburg for help.<\/p>\n

At its meeting on Wednesday, the school board voted unanimously on a resolution calling for the state’s General Assembly to increase public education funding.<\/p>\n

The school district faces a $2.7 million deficit in the 2026-2027 budget, which the school board will vote on at its meeting on June 29.<\/p>\n

After reports that the school district has a “severe financial situation,”<\/a> school directors took measures to reduce a deficit considered between $15-16 million with no tax increase.<\/p>\n

The school board opted in late April to eliminate 31 positions, including nine administrative posts, and over 20 elementary teachers, librarians, guidance counselors, and special education teachers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state is failing our schools by over $4 billion by not funding our programs but mandating additional requirements,” the school board said in a joint statement. “You (the Assembly) need to work harder, and you need to do better, all of you, without exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

In last year\u2019s budget, State Rep. Kathleen “KC” Tomlinson said she voted to support reforming the cyber charter law, which will save schools $175 million statewide and reduce tuition payments for public school districts.<\/p>\n

“The bottom line is I have always supported charter school reform,” Tomlinson said, adding that she went a step further and worked in a bipartisan way to introduce legislation with my colleague Rep Joe Ciresi (D- Montgomery County).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, PA \u2014 As the Bensalem Township School Board decides how to reduce costs before voting on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[191,193,192,194],"class_list":["post-204735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bensalem","tag-bensalem","tag-bensalem-headlines","tag-bensalem-news","tag-bensalem-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204735","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=204735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}