The Pennsylvania budget quietly relaxed a standard for lead reporting in schools.
In the flurry of last-minute dealmaking to approve this year’s state budget, legislators tucked in eleventh-hour language that relaxes Pennsylvania’s rules for publicly reporting the results of lead tests on school drinking water.
State law does not require schools to test for lead, as long as the topic is discussed at a public meeting annually. But if schools do test, they were previously required to report any finding above zero to the state so the results could be posted publicly.
The new provision, quietly inserted in the final 48 hours of budget negotiations earlier this month, requires schools that test to report lead levels above five parts per billion.
