Big week for school budgets

Start the countdown clock. We are four days away from July1, which can mean only one thing.

Pennsylvania is once again staring down the barrel of the mandate to have a state spending plan in place by July 1.

Officials continue to sound confident that they will do something this week that Ed Rendell was not able to do during his eight years in the governor’s mansion. That is deliver a spending plan on time.

That likely will not make it any more palatable to local schools officials, who continue to lament steep cuts in education funding.

Two more districts will meet tonight to come to grips with their budgets. Chichester officials are looking at raising taxes 4.5 percent, and that was whittled down from the original 6.1 percent, to close a $1.7 million deficit.

Things are even more dire in William Penn, where the board already has rejected a call to eliminate the district kindergarten program.

That does not solve their problems. They are still up to their necks in red ink, with a $3 million deficit. Cuts will have to be made. We’ll find out just how deep tonight.

In the meantime, GOP officials are working behind the scenes to restore some of the education funding sliced by Gov. Tom Corbett.

It should be a momentous week.

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