After months of delays and major strain on schools, the state finally has a budget. Aaron and Rachael bring in Government Relations experts Dan Wiedemer and Kelli Thompson to explain what it all means for PSEA members and their students.
After months of delays and major strain on schools, the state finally has a budget. Aaron and Rachael bring in Government Relations experts Dan Wiedemer and Kelli Thompson to explain what it all means for PSEA members and their students.
Do you have some feedback for us? Send an email to podcast@psea.org.
Learn more and watch for upcoming episodes at psea.org/podcast.
Voiceover:
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you. From cutting-edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions, if it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin:
Hello and welcome to Duty Free Lunch. I'm PSEA President Aaron Chapin. Joining me today. PSEA Treasurer Rachael West. Hey there, Rachael.
Rachael West:
Hey there, Aaron.
Aaron Chapin:
How's it going?
Rachael West:
It's lovely.
Aaron Chapin:
This is a great Friday. We're recording this on a Friday.
Rachael West:
Every Friday is a good Friday, right?
Aaron Chapin:
It's a nice calm day for you?
Rachael West:
Every Friday is a nice calm day for me, smarty-pants.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, I don't want to probe any further. Let's get right into this one.
Rachael West:
Okay.
Aaron Chapin:
Because Rachael, at long, long last, the statewide nightmare is over.
Rachael West:
I actually kind of can't believe it. I wasn't sure we were ever going to wake up from this one.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, we got ourselves a state budget, everybody. Woo. Maybe they'll throw in some sound effects when they get this thing all edited. We'll have party horns.
Rachael West:
Oh, that would be awesome.
Aaron Chapin:
Get some applause.
Rachael West:
There you go. Applause will be good.
Aaron Chapin:
I just left it there for him to be putting in. But again, no one's really thrilled, Rachael, about how long it took us to get here, but we do have a lot to celebrate.
Rachael West:
We do.
Aaron Chapin:
I celebrated on Wednesday.
Rachael West:
Did you? Just a little bit?
Aaron Chapin:
I went to bed early.
Rachael West:
Nice.
Aaron Chapin:
Yes, I know. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have a couple of PSEA staffers. They're the experts, really, to talk to about how we got here. They're going to take us through the ins and the outs of what this budget means for our members, what it means for our students, and the great things that it's going to mean for Pennsylvania. So welcome back to our podcast Government Relations superstars Dan Wiedemer, Kelli Thompson. Hello, Dan and Kelli. Now is where you hold it for the applause and it's going to be a long applause. Loud as you can be. Loud, loud, loud. Party horns.
Dan Wiedemer:
Please.
Aaron Chapin:
And fireworks.
Dan Wiedemer:
Please.
Kelli Thompson:
I like fireworks.
Aaron Chapin:
I know. Well, we'll see what Arvin can do for this one. Dan and Kelli, welcome back.
Dan Wiedemer:
Thank you.
Kelli Thompson:
Thank you for having us.
Aaron Chapin:
You must be feeling great.
Kelli Thompson:
Feel relieved.
Dan Wiedemer:
Tired.
Aaron Chapin:
All right, so we're all on the same page here. This is what it's like for old people celebrating. All right. So let's get into this. We've got a lot of questions to ask and I know our listeners are ... Look, if they're listening to this one, they're listening to it for a reason because they love the wonky GR stuff, but they're also probably interested in how this happened and what it's going to mean. So first question, and you guys can jump on whoever wants to answer this one, I bet it's going to be Dan. So it took almost five months for this thing to get sorted out. It caused a lot of pressure on our schools. It caused a lot for our school employees. What took so long for this budget to get passed and what finally put it over the finish line?
Dan Wiedemer:
Let's first acknowledge that this budget delay was just absolutely brutal. Our schools were borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars. If you add in the city of Philadelphia, the school district of Philadelphia, we were borrowing $1.7 billion or so, hundreds of millions of dollars in borrowing costs, and schools just missed their October unit pay which was a big one. It was putting a huge pressure on cash flow. I know that you all traveled the state and got a feel for what was going on out there, right?
Aaron Chapin:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially at the start of the school year, but as we traveled the last few weeks ...
Rachael West:
I was going to say the last few weeks, I've heard a lot of comments about fear of furloughs and programs being shut down because they just weren't going to be able to afford to do them.
Dan Wiedemer:
Yeah. Absolutely. So hallelujah that we are here, but why did it take so long? Well, Pennsylvania is one of the few states in the country that has true divided government.
Aaron Chapin:
I've heard that.
Dan Wiedemer:
We have a Democratic governor. We have a Democratic-controlled house. We have a Republican-controlled Senate. And those Democrats in the house along with Governor Shapiro wanted money for schools. Those Republicans in the Senate wanted a lower spend number. An awful lot of them wanted some form of school choice. So credit where credit is due here, Governor Shapiro could have caved at any point. We could have had a budget in July or August or September, but they fought for their values.
Aaron Chapin:
Yes.
Dan Wiedemer:
I think what ultimately got this done is the ratcheted up pressure that was felt by these policymakers and a big part of it was the work that PSEA was doing. The large amount of press, it was the member advocacy that PSEA was doing, and people who just wouldn't leave that table without ensuring that they were standing up for schools and students and educators.
Rachael West:
Okay. Well, I'm going to ask for a little bit of a deeper dive here. So tell us how important it is that this budget includes year two payments in a multi-year plan to make sure our public school system is constitutional.
Kelli Thompson:
I mean, it's vitally important, Rachael. It was the single most important thing to the House Democrats and Governor Shapiro as they were sitting at the table. To walk away from the multi-year plan to address our constitutional funding system would let up the foot on the gas, then it's really hard to come back to it in future budgets, so drawing that line and saying, "We made a decision about a plan last year and we are going to continue to move forward." Yes, was it a part of why the impasse lasted as long as it did? Absolutely. I would say that it was. But it also demonstrated that we're going to be coming up on our next budget in just a few months. The governor's going to propose his next budget. So it really demonstrates that they're not walking away from it.
And I would also say that they made tweaks to the adequacy component this year. They are going to allow districts that previously hadn't gotten an allocation to receive a minimum payment. So there is more money in that adequacy supplement to spread around. So rather than it being $526 million, it's going to be $565 million this year. So there was more skin in the game, quite honestly, for more legislators to advocate for its inclusion in a final budget deal.
Aaron Chapin:
Wow. You said something and I'll also piggyback on something Dan mentioned in his first response. But we have legislators that were telling us that they weren't going to walk away because the second installment of that adequacy funding was so important because it was basically make or break. The governor said to me on two different occasions, "We're not going to step away because if we lose it now, we're never going to get it back and we're going to go right to the beginning of where we started." And I know Dan, with the conversations you and Jim Vaughn have had with leaders in the House, they weren't going to let it go either. I feel like it was a more united front to fight for that adequacy funding. Would you guys say that's accurate?
Kelli Thompson:
I would 100% say that's accurate and I would say some of the people that were around the last time we did an adequacy formula was during the end of the Rendell administration, 2008, 2009, 2010. I'm dating myself now because I remember those budgets. And so the last couple of years of the Rendell administration, we did an adequacy formula. And then power change, we got a new governor, and that was over. We walked away and we never got that adequacy formula back. So essentially, we had to start over after the court decision was made in 2023. And so starting over, those individuals who are sitting at the table learned from the past ...
Aaron Chapin:
Wow.
Kelli Thompson:
And learned that they could not let up on the gas. They had to press on and make it clear that they were never walking away from it.
Aaron Chapin:
Lessons learned.
Kelli Thompson:
Absolutely.
Aaron Chapin:
And I'm super impressed. Again, I'll be giving my thanks to these legislators over and over as we go through the rest of the fall and into the winter. Let's talk about some other key components to this. This budget includes a number of cyber charter school reforms, including a revision to how cyber tuition is calculated, improvements to attendance, which everybody knows is important, wellness policies. So can you give us some of these reforms that were included and how we got to this point?
Kelli Thompson:
Sure. So let's start with the improvements to attendance and wellness policies. So first of all, the Omnibus School code bill is going to require cyber charter schools to have an attendance policy that delineates around excused absences and unexcused absences, both for synchronous instruction or live instruction, as well as what's it mean to be excused or unexcused for asynchronous instruction, so for those students that are doing work on the side. But to ensure that there's some accountability for those students that are ... Some schools do a lot of asynchronous instruction these days in cyber charter schools. So for those students, there's going to be some accountability at the state level that cyber charter schools are going to have to submit a plan for weekly benchmarks of what it means for those students and what benchmarks they're going to have to achieve in order to be counted as excused.
It's not going to be just turning on your computer, logging into the portal for the cyber charter school and that counting as attendance. And that was something that our cyber members at PSEA really said concerned them. They want to see kids learning, right? So then you have the wellness check policies, which was in last year's school code bill, that's really trying to get eyes on kids on a weekly basis basically to ensure that they're healthy, to ensure that they're being treated well and things.
Aaron Chapin:
We're not picking on these schools. We're standing up for the kids.
Kelli Thompson:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And so there was some differences in legal interpretation from cyber charter schools about how they implemented those wellness policies. So I think the questionable language that some folks said didn't require cyber schools to make sure that they were putting eyes on kids on a weekly basis, that language is gone and there's greater accountability and there's teeth from the Department of Education that there's going to be consequences if they are not fulfilling these wellness check policies. There's greater residency rules.
And I would also say that our cyber members said, "Hey, sometimes we know that there are students that are not living in Pennsylvania and they're learning somewhere else in the world," like in Mexico, in Puerto Rico, in Afghanistan, or something like that. They're saying we need have the opportunity to report this, and so there's whistleblower protection in the school code for those cyber teachers that want to make a report about residency. There are changes to the cyber charter tuition and how it's going to be calculated at the local level for each district's individual tuition rate. The appropriations committees in both the House and the Senate estimate that it's going to result in $178 million in savings to districts, so that equates to the cut to cyber charter schools.
Rachael West:
Awesome. So one of the PSEA's top priorities has been the student teacher stipend, and I know you have really helped us keep track of how that's working. There's $30 million in this budget for it. So Kelli, could you explain what this is going to look like since now we are months into the year? What does this money rollout look like for the students that have been student teaching this fall?
Kelli Thompson:
So first of all, I want to assure those students that applied and that were doing their fall student teaching. If they are eligible and they meet the eligibility requirements, and it's based on when they hit enter to apply, they're still going to receive hopefully. It depends on how much money is available and how many people are eligible. They're still going to receive their stipend. But it is $30 million. It is a little bit less than what the governor had originally proposed. He proposed $40 million. So I think where we are right now for those students who are out there, FIA has already started communicating with institutions of higher education, their teacher prep programs to verify eligibility. I'm hopeful here, within the next few weeks, students are going to hear from FIA directly to say, "You have been determined eligible."
Then FIA will start communicating with the school entities that have student teachers that have been placed. They will confirm rosters. So my advice to student teachers this fall: Do not leave your student teacher placement without making sure that your school business office has your contact information. You have a phone number and an address where you want that check to be sent. Because I can say it will be virtually impossible for a school entity to receive the money from the state and then get the check to them before the holidays. I think we're looking at January at this point.
Rachael West:
Right, and those student teachers will be done in December.
Kelli Thompson:
Absolutely.
Rachael West:
So they're going to need to have that information. So this budget seems to show how important it is to have pro-public education legislators and a pro-public education governor. Since Josh Shapiro became governor, he has secured $2.14 billion in K-12 funding. So tell us what a difference it makes to lobby lawmakers when we have a pro-public education governor and the majority in the legislature.
Dan Wiedemer:
So here's a great exercise for us. Let's compare what happened in Pennsylvania with this budget delay to what's happened in Washington DC, both with the budget delay there and what occurred over the summer with the Big Beautiful Bill. And I think that tells us everything that we need to know because in both cases you had executives and you had policymakers digging in. But what a difference when somebody shares the values of 177,000 public school employees around this Commonwealth because there are people right now, right this second who are sitting in Washington DC, who are executing a plan to attack public education, and the politicians that are voting for those bills are just executing it.
And what have we seen? We've seen less support for kids with special needs. We've seen kids coming to school hungry. We've seen school vouchers. We have seen parents losing healthcare. We've seen destruction of the Department of Education. And then you compare that to Pennsylvania, where in Josh Shapiro's first term we have delivered $2.14 billion, where we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in mental health and safety for our students, where we had people who were not leaving that budget table until they could ensure that they were getting resources for historically underfunded schools to make sure that custodians and cafeteria workers were getting their pension benefits. The difference, the tale of those two budgets really tells us the choice that we have in this country and in this Commonwealth and the difference it makes to have pro-public education elected officials leading us.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah. Well, speaking of politics, November 4th election. I mean, we've had a lot of good news in the last couple of weeks.
Dan Wiedemer:
We have.
Aaron Chapin:
We got a budget. Hey, the federal government's open. Whether you want to say that's good or bad, it's open at least. And if you go back the week before November 4th, the election day, we saw some amazing victories for public education, judicial races, county row offices, school boards. Can you give us a brief rundown? Because we are going to be running late today, so everybody is going past your duty free lunch into your planning period. Sorry to hear that. Give us some of these brief results though.
Dan Wiedemer:
Well, I think what we saw was one of the best nights for pro-public education candidates, not only in Pennsylvania but throughout the country in a long, long time. Here in Pennsylvania, a lot of folks know we retained our Supreme Court, which is enormously important. We elected school board candidates all throughout this Commonwealth who are opposing things like book bans and attacking public education when they are there to serving it. We flipped the Erie County executive, the Luzerne County Council, and that's just in Pennsylvania. We saw huge victories in New Jersey and in Virginia. And I think the big takeaway from last Tuesday is that people are unhappy with the direction of this country, they're unhappy with those federal policies that we talked about that focus on destroying public education, and the pendulum has swung back and we're going to see a lot more of that heading into 2026.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah. I think it's easy to say our members, I think they've had enough and they've been really engaged. And so as Jeff, Rachael, and I have been crossing the state, it's hard to really fully grasp just the power of PSEA member organization and it's astonishing just to see how committed our members are. So tell me from the Government Relations perspective, Kelli. When you're going into the capitol and you meet with those lawmakers, how important is it to have the wind in your sails just because of the level of member advocacy and involvement at this time? Is it helpful for you?
Kelli Thompson:
Oh, it's tremendously helpful. I think our members and their advocacy efforts, they put a face on the issues that Erika, Dan, and I are up in the capitol talking to policymakers about. Their personal stories are what stay in the mind of legislators, but it also demonstrates how PSEA is different from many organizations in that our advocacy strategy with our members and our direct lobbying, it is a seamless connection. And so there isn't a way to divide and conquer because all of the tools at our disposal are all working together toward a single goal.
Aaron Chapin:
You got it.
Rachael West:
So there are several ways, as a PSEA member, you can get involved politically and lobby directly to lawmakers. Our ACE program is one and another is Education Defenders. So we just launched this summer and we've got more than 1,000 members that are part of this program now. So Dan, maybe you can talk a little bit about how that program got started, how it dovetails into our other legislative efforts, and what that means for our organization as we move forward.
Dan Wiedemer:
Well, it's hard for me to talk a little bit about this because one of the things I feel most strongly about is the advocacy work of PSEA members. And it's something that I think even they don't realize the enormous power that they have in their communities with elected officials, how effective their voices are, just how respected they are for what it is that they do, and they can really genuinely make a difference. Our advocates for children in education are our grasstops advocates who do incredible work.
Education Defenders, as you mentioned, these are folks who want to be the most informed, the most engaged, and the most ready to act within PSEA. And over the past couple of months, we've done some incredibly exciting things with them. We've had statewide speakers, we've had members of Congress come and talk to them. We had our judicial retention folks come and do a phone bank with those Education Defenders. They are growing in importance and in value. And I think as we head into the 2026 budget season, as we head into the 2026 election, one of the best ways to get involved and to make a difference is to become an Education Defender.
Aaron Chapin:
All right.
Rachael West:
And again, join the Education Defenders by going to psea.org/defenders. I'm just going to put a plug in there for you. All right.
Aaron Chapin:
All right, you know what is? There's no pop quiz today.
Rachael West:
There's no pop quiz?
Aaron Chapin:
No. Instead, we got short answer response.
Rachael West:
Lame. All right.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, that's a fifth grade reading [inaudible 00:21:58].
Rachael West:
I was like ...
Aaron Chapin:
Go ahead.
Rachael West:
That sounds like the PSSAs. All right, so with this budget saga finally put to rest, each of you, if you could give me one legislative goal you would like to see get accomplished in the '25-'26 calendar.
Dan Wiedemer:
Well, Madam Treasurer, I'm going to say a COLA for pre-Act 9 retirees.
Aaron Chapin:
I could have bet money that's what you were going to say.
Kelli Thompson:
I'm going to say I'd like to see a ban on cell phones.
Aaron Chapin:
I would've been two for two.
Kelli Thompson:
Look at you.
Aaron Chapin:
As I was coming up with this question, I'm like, "I'm going to predict what they're going to say." Would you like to expand upon that one real quickly, Dan? I know we're going over a little bit, but that's okay. What's with the COLA?
Dan Wiedemer:
Well, I think that the need for a COLA speaks for itself. We have retirees who haven't had a COLA in over 20 years in this Commonwealth. One of the ways that we show our value for public education is to ensure that we respect the people who made public education in this Commonwealth what it is. There are folks who are surviving on $600, $700, $800 per month. It's completely unacceptable. It is shameful. We have to do better as a government for those folks.
Aaron Chapin:
And as I told you before we started recording, it's two days after the budget was signed. I've already heard from a number of retirees irate that there's no COLA in this. And I told them they have absolutely every right to feel that way. I told them it's not PSEA's fault. We've done everything we can be doing and we're going to keep trying. Kelli, why the cell phone? What's with that, quick?
Kelli Thompson:
I hear so much from our members about the distractions and the bullying, the cyber bullying that cell phones in a post pandemic world are causing in our schools. And it feels like there is this situation happening between our members and legislators on the Hill where we're meeting up at the exact right time. It's like, "Okay, we've reached the limit. There's something we have to do to get a hold of this so our members aren't cell phone police every day in schools." There needs to be a consistent foundation for how we're approaching personal student mobile devices.
Aaron Chapin:
Want to shameless plug?
Kelli Thompson:
Sure.
Aaron Chapin:
Watch PA's Newsmakers this coming weekend.
Kelli Thompson:
It's going to be exciting.
Aaron Chapin:
We're going to talk all about that one. And we'll also be doing a podcast about that as we get into the winter months. Thank you for both sharing those and that does it. We are well over time, Rachael. Our guests today have been PSEA's own Kelli Thompson and Dan Wiedemer. It's been a pleasure having you both on the podcast. Thank you for joining us.
Dan Wiedemer:
Thank you.
Aaron Chapin:
I know we're going to see you again soon.
Kelli Thompson:
Thank you.
Aaron Chapin:
Thank you very much. You got it. And to all you listeners out there, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for hanging in there during that five-month budget ordeal. Got some feedback for us? You know how to do it. You got to send us an email to podcast@psea.org. Maybe if you ask a question, Kelli will answer it. I'm Aaron Chapin.
Rachael West:
And I'm Rachael West.
Aaron Chapin:
Very good. And you have been listening to what, Rachael?
Rachael West:
Duty Free Lunch.
Aaron Chapin:
That's right. Goodbye, everybody.
Voiceover:
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psea.org/podcast to learn more and don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.