Here was the only local item I could find pertaining to Lincoln and the budget crisis which shows they were indeed feeling the pain. 

http://abc27.com/2015/10/08/budget-now-100-days-late-charter-schools-feeling-the-pain/

 

Last edited by tennyson (1/19/2016 5:32 pm)

According to the PA department of education, this is how charter schools are to be funded:

HOW ARE CHARTER SCHOOLS FUNDED?

There is no tuition charge for a resident or nonresident student attending a charter school.  Funding for charter schools is addressed in Section 1725-A (PDF) of the Pennsylvania Public School Code.  Charter schools should receive for each student enrolled an amount paid by the district of resident of each student.  This amount is based upon a statutory funding formula.  There is a funding formula for non-special education students and for special education students.       

Pursuant to section 1725-A(a)(5), a charter school may ask the Secretary of Education to redirect a school district’s subsidy when the school district fails to pay the charter school for educating resident students.  The request must be in writing and include a copy of the invoice prepared in the format required by PDE.


So, once again, if a reasonably negotiated budget had been passed on time, public schools would have been funded per the budget. Since this did not happen, in order to continue to function and stay open public schools had to borrow money to pay teachers and all their fixed and variable costs. One cost that suffered was the transferring of funds to charter schools on a per student basis that opted for charter school instead of public school within that district. Charter schools without necessary funding or, as the case with Thackston that was on shakey financial grounds previously, did not have necessary operational funds, they had to go out begging for money to stay open. A reasonable budget that adequately funds education in Pennsylvania would have avoided this problem.