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With two months left in the fiscal year, the state education budget is finally final(ish), and area districts know how much money they can expect from Harrisburg. The good news: Luzerne County school districts ended up with bigger increases in state money under the funding formula used by the Legislature than they were going to get under the formula Gov. Tom Wolf intended to use.
The bad news, of course, is that districts had to spend 10 months not knowing what they were going to get as Democrat Wolf and the Republican-controlled Legislature battled over the numbers.
That battle seemed to end March 28 when Wolf allowed the Legislature’s final proposal to pass without his signature, but the money hit a roadblock on the way from Harrisburg to local coffers. Wolf planned to dole out the money using a formula create by his administration, and the Legislature balked, contending he had to use a new formula drawn up by a bipartisan commission.
The Legislature sent Wolf a new “Fiscal Code” that spelled out how money would be spent, and it used the bipartisan formula for any education spending increase over last year’s budget. Wolf again let the proposal pass without signing it, but districts still had no clear idea what they would get.
That changed Monday when the Department of Education released spreadsheets showing how much districts would get from three primary sources: Basic Education Funding, the much smaller Right To Learn grants, and Special Education Funding.
Since the total amount of money being handed out was the same regardless of which formula — Wolf’s or the Legislature’s — is used, switching formulas meant some districts would see bigger increases under the new plan while others would see smaller increases.
While that meant winners and losers across the state, a Times Leader analysis shows all 11 Luzerne County School districts won, though some won bigger than others.
Hazleton Area had the best outcome, seeing the total increase in state money climb from $786,071 to $1.93 million, nearly a 146 percent increase.
Greater Nanticoke Area saw the smallest gain percentage-wise. Under the governor’s plan it would have received $418,989; under the final plan it will get $426,142, a scant boost of 1.7 percent.
But it isn’t all bad news for Greater Nanticoke.
Only three other districts — Hazleton Area, Wyoming Valley West and Wilkes-Barre Area — got substantially bigger increases dollar-wise, getting more than double the increase of GNA under the final formula. Pittston Area got a slightly better increase ($441,823) than GNA.
Even with the new data, districts don’t have all the state numbers yet.
The fiscal code includes an attempt to fix the state’s PlanCon system used to reimburse districts some of the cost of construction or renovation. In the past, the system received about $300 million every year to dole out as annual reimbursements approved through a complicated, multi-step process of paperwork filed by districts.
Wolf’s predecessor, Gov. Tom Corbett, had declared a moratorium on the program, which Wolf lifted. But the system needs far more money than it has, and the new fiscal code authorized the borrowing of up to $2.5 billion, with a “b”, to pay all approved reimbursements.
There is no indication how soon the borrowing can be completed, but Hanover Area School District Business Manager Tom Cipriano said it’s all but impossible to float so much in bonds before the fiscal year ends June 30, so districts still can’t be sure how much they will get, or when.
It gets worse for districts looking for PlanCon money that haven’t filed initial paperwork. The fiscal code calls for another moratorium on any projects not already in the PlanCon system by May 15.
The recurring estimates of how much districts can expect from the state — this is at least the third spreadsheet released by Harrisburg since budgeting began in February of last year — has made local budgeting little more than guesswork.
“What’s the point of looking at it,” Dallas Business Manager Grant Palfey said. “I’m too busy figuring out next year’s budget.”
Despite the 10-month delay in finalizing the 2015-16 state budgets, districts must still finalize their 2016-17 budgets by June 30.