Better Late than Never: Pennsylvania Budget has Good News for Early Ed

States this year have been faced with tough budget choices, and Pennsylvania certainly did not hurry in making its decisions. At long last, however, stakeholders in early education can relax: the 2009-2010 Pennsylvania budget is in, and early ed was not a victim of this year’s budget crunch.

Gov. Ed Rendell signed the budget into law last Friday, thus ending the longest budget delay in any U.S. state this year. It was passed 42-7 in the state Senate, after a 101-day stand-off in the legislature.

The $2.62 billion budget slashed $500 million from 2008-2009 state spending levels and includes a $300 million spending increase in general education funding. This boost in education funding, along with the lack of broad tax increases in the 2009-2010 budget, may prove the most popular piece of the new budget.

The 2009-2010 budget taps heavily into Pennsylvania’s $750 million rainy day fund, a move that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan strongly encouraged in a June 22 letter to Gov. Rendell. In the letter, Duncan indicated that if states such as Pennsylvania choose to drastically cut education spending or do “nothing more than backfill budget holes [with stimulus funds] when the state had other resources available to it, such as a rainy-day fund, the State’s competitive position to receive Race to the Top funds and/or other competitive grants may be negatively impacted.”

This warning is particularly relevant to Pennsylvania because the state recently received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help with its Race to the Top (RTTT) application — an indicator that the state may be considered an early favorite for receiving RTTT grant money. Gov. Rendell likely did not want to hurt Pennsylvania’s chances at receiving the competitive grant money by neglecting the state’s rainy day funds in its 2009-2010 budget.

Overall, the Pennsylvania budget relied heavily on $6.3 billion in ARRA stimulus funding, of which $1.56 billion is allocated for education spending over the next two years. The education budget is receiving $655 million of this money. $355 million of which will be used to avoid budget cuts. The other $300 million will be allocated for basic K-12 education spending. According to the Department of Education, this $300 million (or, roughly 5 percent) increase is the largest general education spending increase in Pennsylvania state history.

Regarding early childhood programs specifically, the state maintained funding levels during a year when a few states, such as Ohio, have made drastic cuts.

In Pennsylvania, 11 main programs provide early childhood education and care. Four of these are responsible for educating more than 20,000 pre-K students: Kindergarten for Four-Year-Olds (K4), Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts, the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program, and the Accountability Block Grant. The Accountability Block Grant program provides money to school districts for improving early education via higher quality pre-K, full-day kindergarten and reduced class size in the early grades. Pre-K Counts is a competitive award system that provides grants to both public and private licensed preschools and child care facilities.

Because funding for K4 comes from the basic education funding formula, the budget does not provide a breakdown showing K4’s funding level for next year. But it’s possible that the program may receive an increase as part of the general education funds for 2009-2010 that were boosted with the help of ARRA stimulus money. The state kept funding flat for the three latter programs (Pre-K Counts, HSSA, and ABG’s), providing them with a combined $397 million — the same amount they received in 2008-2009.

Several other programs in the keystone state also provide other early childhood services. Funding for most of these programs, including Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program and the Migrant Education Program, did not increase for the current school year. Two programs are exceptions: Early Intervention, which provides care for children from birth to age 5 who have developmental delays or disabilities, received a $6 million boost from stimulus funding, bringing its annual funding up to $300 million dollars. And the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) received a $10 million boost, making it a $97 million program next year.

Critics point out that the 2009-2010 budget taps heavily into monetary state reserves and cuts spending in areas such as environmental conservation. And even within the Department of Education, some programs were cut, such as $20 million for safe and alternative schools.

Most stakeholders in Pennsylvania’s PreK-12 system will likely be pleased with the 2009-2010 budget. There is no guarantee, however, that any of the funding increases will last beyond the end of 2011, when the pool of stimulus money in Pennsylvania’s budget is scheduled to run dry.