PA. makes schools wait 3+ yrs for promised school construction grants. Guess where the money went?

[JPZenger]

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-pa-plancon-school-construction-20130727,0,3079191,full.story

PA for decades has had a program called PlanCon. It reimburses public school districts for a portion of the costs of constructing new schools and completing major renovations of older schools. The reimbursement rate varies with the economic resources of the school district - poorer districts get a higher percentage of reimbursement than richer districts.

The school districts get pre-approval for their projects from the state. However, since el Corberto has become Presidente of Pennsylvania, the money has slowed to a trickle. Many districts have waited over 3 years and counting for their promised reimbursements - that is often 3 years after the school has been in operation.

Where did millions of these dollars from the state PlanCon fund go instead? They were diverted to lease reimbursements for charter schools, including many payments that have been ruled to be illegal.

Excerpts of the above news article:

"...the state used the PlanCon budget to pay charter-school lease reimbursements... By 2012-13, that figure grew to a projected $8.2 million, about 2.7 percent of the allotment. Six charters, including Allentown's Roberto Clemente Charter School, received more than $500,000 in "improper lease reimbursements" over a span of several years, according to a report from the auditor general's office in March. The auditor general said the charters filed for lease reimbursements for properties related to or owned by the charter schools, which is prohibited under the charter school law.

Roberto Clemente was ineligible to receive $191,267 in lease reimbursements for 2006-07 through 2009-10 because the building is owned by the charter's founding parent organization, the Hispanic American Organization, the report says. Roberto Clemente officials said in their official audit response that the lease reimbursements were not improper.

The auditor general's office called on Gov. Tom Corbett's office, the Department of Education and the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools to work together on a comprehensive solution to the issues raised in the report.

In 2011, Corbett's first year in office, PlanCon funding was slashed by about $20 million, or about 6 percent, the largest single-year decrease since 1993-94."

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http://www.psba.org/issues-advocacy/issues-research/state-budget/2013/Part_G_Letter-04152013.pdf

Excerpt:

"While there are about 350 school construction projects at various stages of PlanCon that have not yet received
reimbursement, the inadequate state funding has trapped over 160 school construction projects, representing 125 school districts and vo-tech schools, in a backlog at Part G of the process waiting for formal approval of their PlanCon Part H document.

On most of our PlanCon projects, construction is complete, the facilities are in use, debt payments are due, and Part H applications have been submitted to the Department. In all cases, the Department has not provided needed reimbursement, leaving our school
districts waiting in the same place for over 2 years, with some districts waiting even longer Despite the fact that we carefully planned for financing these needed school construction and renovation projects, the significant delay in reimbursement rendered our planning useless, and we have had to spend down our reserves, increase taxes, or cut programs, services, and staff to meet our obligations in the absence of state reimbursement. "


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Also, the state established a moratorium on accepting applications for state funding of public school construction and renovation soon after el Presidente took power. That moratorium keeps getting extended and extended and extended. However, the state did recently approve a new $3 million grant to build a new charter school building in Bethlehem for the arts, at the same time that tens of arts and music teachers are being laid off from nearby public schools.

[Curmudgeoness]

1. Uh oh.

Our school district is just finishing up a new elementary school. I have no idea where the funds came from, or if they have gotten an of it yet. I am bookmarking this so that if the school declares that they cannot get the funds that were promised, I have ammunition for a scathing LTTE for the newspaper. People need to know that Corbett is directly hurting them as well as the state.

[JPZenger]

2. Most school districts are aware of the problem -hundreds signed a letter to the Speaker of the House

Hundreds of school board members and superintendents signed a joint a letter a couple months ago to the Speaker of the House about this matter. If a school district does a project now, they risk not receiving any reimbursement, because the state will refuse to accept their application.

Also, the PA Dept of Ed recently put out a report noting that there are some states that don't provide any funding for school construction or renovation. Arkansas is our new model for public education.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. " Arkansas is our new model for public education."

Nothing like reaching for the stars!

The GOP would prefer that the US follow the lead of Ethiopia instead of Switzerland, and our state GOP is aiming to emulate Arkansas or Mississippi. I cannot pinpoint when this state started going downhill, but when Corbett got in with a GOP majority in the legislature, it went off a cliff.