Pennsylvania Scales Back Funding To Philadelphia Charter Schools
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The state has made its annual re-calculation of charter school payments, and it's bad news for Philadelphia's charters.
Charters are paid based on how much money school districts spend on their own students the previous year. Philadelphia spent less last year. Its 83 charters are just now finding out that they're getting $16 million less in the current year.
Tim Eller, who heads the Keystone Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says now those schools will have to cut.
"When you're nine months into a fiscal year, or nine months into a budget year, you've pretty much spent most of your budget. So now charter schools have to find ways to reduce expenses between now and the end of June."
The school district plans to reduce the size of its payments in the last two months of this fiscal year, to reflect the new rate.
Eller says the state usually releases its new charter rates in early spring -- but this year, word came particularly late.