PHOTO PROVIDED Keystone Central School District Superintendent Dr. Francis Redmon talks about Title funding that is being withheld from the district by the federal Office of Budget Management as it reviews the use of these funds by districts nationwide.

MILL HALL — Roughly $300,000 in Title funding from the federal government is being withheld from the Keystone Central School District pending a review of how it is spent — an issue district officials say is affecting schools nationwide.

Superintendent Dr. Francis Redmon told the district’s board of directors at its work session the Office of Budget Management notified the district, through the US Department of Education, that it would withhold Title 1-C, Title 2, Title 3 and Title 4 funding “pending a review of what those dollars have been used for… for this coming year.”

Redmon said the district was allocated “in the ballpark” of $300,000 that was included in the 2025-2026 budget the board passed in June and was sent to PDE.

“These are things we use to pay for all of our professional development. Some of this goes to support our Title I, it supports our enrichment programs for students, our DPLs are paid out of this money. We use it to support some of our PBIS (Positive Behavior In School) work,” he said.

Redmon told the board the administration isn’t sure if “we’re ever going to see the money or when we’re going to see the money.”

“The U.S. Department of Education doesn’t know either because it’s not them holding it, it’s the Office of Budget Management,” he continued. “We don’t know why, there’s been no communication.”

Redmon said the announcement, which was a brief three sentences from the department of education which notified KCSD the funding would be held until a review was complete, caused a stir amongst the school’s administration.

“We can’t take money from anywhere else to push those things back in place,” he said.

He said the administration is working on what to do, noting current plans for professional development are unravelling.

“Some of the stuff we’ll be able to do. We have the summer covered from the 23-24 allocation we got,” he said. “But when we look into September and on we may not be able to do much around professional development.”

Redmon and other superintendents recently attended an AASA Advocacy conference in Washington, DC where they spoke with various representatives such as Congressman Glenn “GT” Thompson and Senator Dave McCormick. He noted he was in a meeting with Thompson’s representatives and was unable to speak with staff from Senator John Fetterman’s office.

“We talked a lot about the impacts in particular of this review that’s happening with these Title programs, but also the impacts of the HB1,” he said, noting HB1 is seeing a “pretty significant cut in education… a 15 percent reduction across the board.”

This, he said, compounds the issue that funding from the state in particular does not keep up with inflationary costs.

This is added onto the reductions in allocations for a variety of funding for programs like CTE, mental health grants and others.

“These are a lot of the ancillary programs that help us do the other stuff besides just the teaching and learning in classes,” he said. “All of that seems to be being pulled back.”

Board Vice President Butch Knauff asked if these cuts could have an effect on the free breakfast and lunch program the district provides to all students.

Redmon said he isn’t entirely certain, but cautioned the changes in SNAP and Medicaid requirements could cause a trickle down effect.

He explained these changes increase the requirements for these programs to qualify.

“We as a school district used to be able to identify and qualify folks for free and reduced lunch based on some information we have through SNAP and some other medical things that we could say these folks need to have that benefit,” he said. “Now that reverts back and the families will have to apply and apparently, from my understanding, they will have to periodically have to apply for the family to showcase they’re pursuing work for SNAP benefits for example.”

Redmon warned of “downstream impacts” that will come from these requirements.

“I think it’s going to be more difficult for us to qualify for community eligibility programs which is what allows us to provide free breakfast and lunch for all of our students,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s going to go away, I’m saying the numbers are going to be a lot closer.”

With the new Medicaid requirements, Redmon said the district could see some difficulties with reimbursements.

He explained the Medicaid reimbursements for services such as speech and language, physical therapy, occupation therapy for students with disabilities whose parents qualify for Medicaid.

“If (the student’s) family qualifies for Medicaid, we can charge for those ancillary services to Medicaid and be reimbursed,” he said.

Now with the increased burden to prove they qualify for the program, it could see some families fall off the program.

“You see this happen, if you increase the requirements even if they’re income is low, they don’t know that they have to reply, they don’t get to the paperwork in time… whatever that maybe be they roll off the rolls, their kids roll off the rolls and we can no longer get the reimbursements for the services that we’re providing them through Medicaid,” he said.

Redmon emphasized these issues the district faces are happening across the Commonwealth and across the nation.

“I think there’s going to be some downstream effects on schools. We are seeing the direct monetary impact when they hold onto some of these monetary funds. But there’s the downstream secondary effects of having these programs with increased administrative burdens for the families that we know are going to impact those schools,” he said.