Dive Brief:

• Officials in school districts that have undertaken 350 construction and renovation projects around Pennsylvania say the state is saving its budget bacon by frying theirs and withholding $1 billion in reimbursements.
• The state Education Department program called The Planning and Construction Workbook is a process for reviewing districts' construction plans and reimbursing them for projects.
• The state took $20 million out of a $316 million reimbursement program in 2011, and the program has been put on hold since then, even though districts are incurring the costs and having to make cuts elsewhere to cover them.

Dive Insight:

State leaders have said they are worried about a possible $1.2 billion budget shortfall next fiscal year. The school officials are getting together to figuratively tap the governor and other leaders on the shoulder and remind them that they already have a $1 billion budget problem that the districts are taking on the chin.