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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | March 11, 2013 04:56 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Patricia H. Vance |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Memo # 15 - Ending the Pension Double Dip for Charter & Cyber Charter Schools |
| In the near future, I plan to introduce new legislation to correct a flaw in the current charter and cyber charter school funding formula that creates a double payment for the employee retirement cost. It is estimated that this "pension double dip" will cost taxpayers as much as $500 million by FY 2016-17. In the Public School Code, the funding formula for charter and cyber charter schools requires that a school district pay that charter school based on the average budgeted expenditures for each resident student, minus certain costs. Costs that are subtracted include transportation, debt service, and special education programs among others. Based on the current funding formula, a school district must include 100% of its employee retirement costs (the district is reimbursed for 50% of these costs by the state). Thus, the charter or cyber charter school is paid by a district for their employee retirement costs. However, the state also reimburses the charter school for 50% of their own employee retirement costs. Therefore, the charter or cyber charter school gets paid twice and taxpayers pay twice for these retirement costs. To ensure taxpayers are not paying twice, this legislation will amend Section 1725-A of the Public School code to include school district retirement costs on the list of expenditures that must be subtracted from the total budgeted expenditures when determining that amount a charter school gets for each resident student attending. |
Introduced as SB812