{"id":205001,"date":"2026-05-29T01:27:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/205001\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T01:27:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:27:06","slug":"school-district-of-philadelphia-approves-4-6b-operating-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/205001\/","title":{"rendered":"School District of Philadelphia approves $4.6B operating budget"},"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 adopted a $4.6 billion operating budget for the 2026-2027 school year amid a <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-school-district-deficit-budget\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$300 million structural deficit<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>The board unanimously approved the operating budget, while passing the capital budget in a 7-1 vote. Board member ChauWing Lam was the lone no vote. Wanda Noval\u00e9s was absent during the meeting.\n<\/p>\n<p>Superintendent Tony B. Watlington has said the deficit is due to <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-school-district-budget-cuts-deficit\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cchronic underfunding and the loss of federal COVID-19 relief funds.\u201d<\/a> To cover the gaps, a <a href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/post\/philadelphia-school-districts-preliminary-budget\/18789739\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">preliminary budget passed in March ordered<\/a> $50 million in classroom cuts and an additional $169 million in central office cuts.\n<\/p>\n<p>This would freeze, cut or reassign about 265 positions throughout the district, but would prevent teacher layoffs and cuts at schools set for closure under the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-school-board-closure-vote\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">controversial facilities plan<\/a>. However, it will likely lead to an increase in overall class sizes, which research suggests <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC11002959\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">could impact academic performance<\/a>.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Below is a detailed breakdown of cuts:\n<\/p>\n<p>Freeze central office vacancies, cut approximately 130 vacant central office positions and reduce additional central office costs \u2013 $30 million savings<br \/>\nReduce contracts and low return-on-investment programs \u2013 $36 million savings<br \/>\nImplement budget efficiencies \u2013 $103 million savings<br \/>\nEliminate approximately 220 building substitute positions \u2013 $13 million savings<br \/>\nReassign approximately 340 school-based positions with all impacted employees moved into other vacant positions, in accordance with collective bargaining agreements \u2013 $43 million savings<\/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":205002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[223,69,71,70,24003,78156],"class_list":["post-205001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-pennsylvania-education","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philly-schools","tag-school-board-of-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205001","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=205001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}