The bitter pill that is the governor's proposed education budget has public school officials choking mad over the potential loss of a key subsidy.
Tom Corbett nearly put an end last year to Accountability Block Grants. His plan was felled when the General Assembly reinstituted the funding but at a fraction of the allocations public schools had become accustomed to receiving.
The governor again has proposed the elimination of the grant program - used to bolster Kindergarten budgets - creating further animosity among school officials, a great many of whom across the state have publicly questioned Corbett's commitment to a free and sound public education.
"He's just making it sound good for himself but really he's not helping public schools at all," said Charles Reh, superintendent of Southern Columbia.
Asked if he had any faith in state legislators to make a second late-hour save, Reh put it bluntly: "No. Not this year."
Shell game
Under Corbett's proposed budget announced last month, basic education would be funded at $5.4 billion, up
slightly from what had been set forth the year prior - a year in which more than $850 million was lost.
In calling for the creation of the Student Achievement Education Block Grant, he's collapsing four revenue streams into one - a move about which both Reh and Dave Campbell, superintendent of Line Mountain, are critical.
"He's playing shell games with the money. He is. ... He's telling people 'I kept the (basic education) level funded.' That is not true. It's just not true," Campbell said.
The Accountability Block Grant Program launched in 2004-05 with an investment of $200 million, an investment that reached as much as $275 million in 2007-08.
Southern Columbia and three of its neighboring school districts - Line Mountain, Mount Carmel Area and Shamokin Area - received a combined $474,766 in 2012-13 in Accountability Block Grants. That's less than what Shamokin Area alone received the year before.
Southern Columbia stands to lose $68,554 if the current grant funding stream dries up. That allocation was just 40 percent of the $174,489 it had received in 2010-11.
Line Mountain received $119,155 in 2010-11 and $78,245 in 2011-12; Mount Carmel Area went from $336,809 to $124,089; Shamokin Area from $553,376 to $203,878.
All four school districts are facing budget deficits of varying degrees of severity.
"Our district was hopeful of receiving $260,000 for the present school year ... but instead we only received $203,878. This shortage caused our district to reallocate our funding streams to ensure we had our costs covered for K4 and kindergarten but other educational programs were cut or reduced," James Zack, Shamokin Area superintendent, wrote in an email to The News-Item.
"Everyone in education is stymied as to how to make up these huge differences in funding when the governing bodies of the state don't come forth with the necessary funding to provide a free education to all who walk in our doors," he wrote.
Padded proposal
Apart from Accountability Block Grants, the other main revenue sources for public schools, as laid out by Zack, are basic education subsidies and reimbursement for student transportation and employee Social Security.
This program has "zero growth" to meet school districts' costs of services, Zack said, adding to increasingly outsized budget shortages that must be accounted for with local funding.
Reh said Corbett is padding his education funding proposal with increased reimbursement for retirement contributions, money that isn't used toward education. Campbell said with the transportation reimbursement formula set to be scrapped, public schools will likely be faced with larger bills for busing.
"It's really going to effect the IUs and the IU will really have no choice but come back and bill us more," Campbell said of its contractual relationship with Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit.
Reh said Corbett's proposal further gashes basic education by calling for the elimination of cyber school reimbursements, a proposal of which Campbell was especially critical.
Public schools are responsible for the tuition of students enrolling in charter schools within their districts, including online education, or cyber schools. The reimbursement had been 30 percent but under Corbett's latest proposal, it would be done away with, Reh said.
Brick and mortar districts must budget for costs cyber schools don't need to cover, such as heating and electricity, Campbell said. However, the tuition remains the same.
"He cost our district an additional $90,000 when he took away some reimbursement for cyber schools," Campbell said. "Plain and simple, he doesn't have to give us more money, just don't make us pay $350,000 for kids going to cyber school."