Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett revealed his proposed state budget Tuesday.POTTSTOWN PA - The deficit in the 2011-2012 preliminary budget of the Pottsgrove School District ballooned from about $1.5 million on Tuesday morning (March 8, 2011) to an estimated $2 million by Tuesday night, and neither district administrators or the Board of School Directors could do a thing about it.
Pottsgrove and most other districts in Pennsylvania, during the course of only a few hours, became victims of a $27.3 billion state budget unveiled by Gov. Tom Corbett that both significantly reduces education funding and, according to Pottsgrove Business Administrator David Nester, potentially burdens schools with new costs.
“It’s going to be a more difficult budget season than we originally thought,” board President Michael Neiffer said, as directors received Nester’s analysis during their meeting at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School, Buchert Road, Pottstown PA.
Corbett’s budget proposal cuts about $1 billion from education next year, Associated Press reports indicated. It eliminates $550 million in public school appropriations, $259 million in special grants, and $224 million in reimbursements for charter school students.
- Read a story by reporter Evan Brandt, published today (Wednesday, March 9) in The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper, on how Corbett’s proposals affect the Spring-Ford, Pottstown, and neighboring school districts as well.
- Download a copy of the entire 1,200-page proposed budget, made available by The (Harrisburg PA) Patriot-News newspaper, here.
- Read Patriot-News reporters’ stories on how the budget proposal affects:
- Human and public services, here;
- Public colleges and state universities, here;
- Renewable energy programs and environmental protection, here;
- Prison and inmate costs, here;
- State police funding, here;
- The effort to sell state liquor stores, here;
- State workers and employee unions, here;
- Arts and cultural groups, here; and
- Pennsylvania’s business climate, here.
Within Pottsgrove, Nester said, the cuts potentially mean $400,000 the district used annually to pay for its full-day kindergarten program is gone. Money it used to cover the cost of charter school tuitions is gone too, to the tune of between $3,000 and $7,000 per enrolled student. Worse yet, Nester said, the district will still be liable for those expenses.
The only good news to come from Corbett’s budget address, Nester added, was that Pottsgrove seemed likely to receive $100,000 more in basic education subsidies than he had budgeted. The other cuts, however, more than wipe out that gain, he said.
Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ meeting of March 8):
- Pottsgrove Budget Deficit Balloons With Gov’s Proposal
- For Pottsgrove’s Record, You Don’t Need To Know This
- MCIU Budgets On Pottsgrove Schools Agenda Tonight
Related (to the Pottsgrove School District 2011-2012 budget):
- Pottsgrove Budget Deficit Balloons With Gov’s Proposal
- MCIU Budgets On Pottsgrove Schools Agenda Tonight
- PA House OKs ‘Cut And Replace’ On Education Funding
- Idea: Other Local Schools Consider Extracurricular Fees
- Idea: Pottsgrove Might Prosper With Own Charter School
- Pooling Resources Could Save Pottsgrove On Special Ed
- Like Pottsgrove Task Force, Outsiders Weigh Cost Vs. Value
- Task Force Crowd Packs Into Pottsgrove For First Session
- School Budget Task Force Kicks Off Its Work Tonight
- Does Western PA School Tax Uprising Foretell Mood Here?
- Pottsgrove Schools Budget Short Another $400,000
- Pottsgrove, As Expected, Adopts Budget First Draft
- Pottsgrove Tentative Budget Adoption Expected
- Weather Postpones Pottsgrove Budget Meeting
- Still Time In Pottsgrove For Budget Volunteers To Enlist
- Challenge To Pottsgrove Budget Advisers: 10 Percent
- Best Guesses, Deficit Launch Pottsgrove Budget Season
- Senate Education Chair Preps For Voucher, Choice Battle
- School Board Questions Pottsgrove Recreation Costs
- Pension Reform Vote Could Benefit Pottsgrove, Others
- Notebook Worthy: News Reporters Made News Tuesday
- Pottsgrove Isn’t Waiting In Search For Budget Volunteers
- If You’ve Got A Budget Idea, Pottsgrove Says It’ll Listen
- Pottsgrove Seeks More Public Input On District Budget
Photo from the Pennsylvania Guardian
Does Nester mean the CYBER “charter schools”?
All charter schools, Wolfgang, be they bricks-and-mortar or online, is my understanding.
What Charter Schools are available to Pottsgrove District students besides the Cyber School?
How many Pottsgrove District students are enrolled in Cyber Schools?
How many in private schools?
No answers that I can find on the PGSD website.
Wolfgang, it’s my understanding that any charter school or cyber-charter school certified by the state qualifies as a school in which Pottsgrove students (or those in other districts, for that matter) can be enrolled. I do not know how many students are enrolled specifically in cyber-charter schools. Pottsgrove is considering, but has not yet created, its own cyber-charter school.
Business Administrator David Nester, during the March 8 (2011) Board of School Directors meeting, reported Pottsgrove spent $1.1 million during 2009-2010 on charter school tuitions, for which it was reimbursed by the state at a rate of about 30 percent or $325,000. The cost of tuitions, he also said, ranged from between $11,000 per regular education student to $25,000 per special education student. Dividing the low end of that range into the total cost yields 100 students. If one estimates that 10 percent of the charter enrollments qualify as special education (purely a guess on my part), the student enrollment is lowered to 87. I’ll bet that’s in the ballpark.
Is “special education” a euphamism for “special discipline”? Does that $1.1 million Nester is quoting include any students who have been “outsourced” for discipline issues?
Thanks for “reading the tea leaves” to answer my question. Perhaps the school district will simply provide those numbers on their website. “Right to Know” is not needed if there is an “Obligation to Inform”.
I don’t know of any charter schools within driving or bussing distance of the Pottsgroves, do you?