JACKSON TWP — When the Seneca Valley School Board finalized the district’s budget for the upcoming 2023-24 school year, it likely had no idea the state would fail to do the same for its budget by the start of August.

Public school districts across the state receive a chunk of their annual revenue in the form of subsidies from federal and state governments. With the budget impasse threatening to stretch for months, school districts — already hard hit by the pandemic — could suffer another financial blow.

Although there seems to be no end in sight to the budget deadlock, the nine-member Seneca Valley board is confident the district will be able to weather the financial uncertainty caused in Harrisburg.

“Our planning that we’ve done financially ... we are in a very good position as a district.” said school board member Eric DiTullio during a board meeting Tuesday evening. “We’ve always been cognizant to make sure we can get over hurdles like this. There are other districts in the commonwealth that are not in the same position.”

The state was supposed to have its 2023-24 budget wrapped up by June 30, but it is now more than a month late. Senate president pro tempore Sen. Kim Ward, R-39th, must deliver a signed copy of the budget bill to the governor to sign, though the Senate isn’t due back in session until Sept. 18.

The issue has been complicated further by the resignation of state Rep. Sara Innamorato, D-21st, who left to pursue her campaign for Allegheny County Executive. This, at least for the time being, created a 101-101 deadlock in the House, erasing the Democrats’ slim one-seat advantage.

“Right now there is no goodwill coming from either chamber, either side of the aisle to get this done. The governor hasn’t really even come out and criticized people yet on this,” DiTullio said. “This could get worse. I’m hoping this gets better.”

In mid-June, Seneca Valley passed its budget for the 2023-24 school year, which comes out to just over $168 million. Estimated revenue sits at just under $158.2 million, with just under $40 million coming from various state subsidies which are not currently available due to the lack of a set state budget.

DiTullio believes that the district can get by in the short term through other sources of funding, including real estate taxes. In a fortuitous turn of events, Seneca Valley included a 1.95% real estate tax hike in its final budget.

“We still collect property taxes. Our money, locally, still comes in, so we’ll still have that,” said DiTullio. “We just won’t get the money that the state theoretically budgeted because nothing was finalized even when we did that final budget in June. We had to make some assumptions of what they would give us.”

However, DiTullio also admitted that if the budget impasse becomes prolonged, the district would have to dig into its reserve fund.

The last time Pennsylvania went through a state budget impasse was 2015, where the state Legislature failed to finalize the budget for nine months. The deadlock deprived schools and nonprofit institutions across the state of hundreds of millions of dollars of government subsidies.

“We’ve prepared for this. We’ve seen it before,” DiTullio said. “It’s almost like we’ve grown to expect it from the state at this point.”