Funding Error Hits Schools
March 29, 2010
In February, Gov. Ed Rendell proposed giving Columbia Borough School District a $314,233 increase in state funding next year.
Oops, make that $171,883.
And School District of Lancaster?
Forget about that $5.4 million hike you were promised.
The actual number is $4.3 million.
The Legislature is months away from debating possible cuts in Rendell’s school funding proposal, so why did the numbers drop now?
Don’t blame lawmakers or the governor.
The declines resulted from an error in the formula used to determine each district’s share of basic education funds, Mike Race, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said.
The complicated formula, implemented two years ago, is supposed to consider each district’s 2008-09 tax rate in mills — along with myriad other factors — to determine funding levels for 2010-11.
When the numbers were worked up, however, the millage rate from the previous year, 2007-08, was mistakenly plugged into the formula, Race said.
PDE’s finance department noticed the error, and the proposed subsidies were revised last week, Race said. District superintendents received an e-mail this week notifying them of the changes.
The corrected formula boosted the proposed subsidies for 295 of the state’s 500 districts and decreased subsidies for 83 districts. The remaining 122 districts saw no change.
In Lancaster County, 13 of 17 districts got an increase in promised aid, but the hikes are modest — 0.4 percent or le ss.
Five districts — SDL, Columbia, Donegal and Octorara — are on the losing end of the corrected formula.
Donegal’s promised subsidy dropped by only $5,600, but the other declines are significant.
Octorara’s proposed increase went down by $135,076, and Columbia’s fell by $142,350.
SDL’s proposed subsidy dropped by $1,117,683. Instead of an 11.46 percent increase in basic education funding next year, it’s now slated to get a 9.12 percent hike.
"This is certainly disheartening for any school district," SDL board member Todd Heath said.
For Columbia, the decline means the district may not be able to purchase science kits for its elementary schools, business manager Laura Cowburn said.
Instead of a 4.71 percent increase in state aid, it’s now expected to get a 2.58 percent hike.
What’s frustrating, Cowburn said, is that state law permits the district to raise property taxes by as much as 4.2 percent, but the state isn’t providing an equivalent increase in funding.
"Compound that with the flat-funded special-education subsidy and less subsidy … for charter school tuition, and the ability for us to put money toward achievement initiatives is slim to none," she said in an e-mail.
Heath, who co-chairs the SDL board’s finance and facilities committee, said it’s early enough in the district’s budgeting process to adjust for reduced state funding.
But at this point he could not say where possible cuts could be made in the district’s proposed budget.
"Fortunately, we’re in the middle of the process, so this is not a crisis for us," he said.
School officials won’t know the a ctual amount of state aid they’ll receive until the state budget is approved in the summer — or later.
The spending plan is supposed to be approved by July 1 each year, but the 2009-10 budget wasn’t adopted until October.