Wednesday, October 21, 2015

First In Line

One cute feature of our state charter school law is that they are first in line for money. School districts have to pay them first. Wonderful!

Adding to the financial strain on school districts, the Department of Education has said it will withhold portions of gambling revenue to those school districts that have stopped making payments to charter schools because of the impasse.

The gambling money - the only state money flowing to districts during the stalemate - is normally used by districts for property-tax relief.

Education officials are now skimming off a portion of that funding to pay charters. In a statement, they said that Pennsylvania's charter-school law states that if a school district doesn't pay its charters, the state "shall" deduct that amount from "any and all" payments to the district.