The numbers aren’t final yet, but the impact of Governor Josh Shapiro’s recent budget address on North Penn is coming into focus.
“What’s being proposed next year for North Penn School District is a 1.86 percent increase in the basic education funding; that is $346,365 that falls far short from what we’ve received for an increase this fiscal year,” said district CFO Steve Skrocki.
“For the current year, we had a $1.8 million increase, or 10.72 percent. So we’re thankful for any increase, but it is substantially lower than what we had in the current year: $1.8 million in the current year, and $346,000 is being proposed by the governor,” he said.
Each year the governor kicks off the state’s budget season with an address in early February announcing his goals and priorities, prompting lawmakers to wrangle for the rest of spring until a budget is passed, in summer or sometimes later. At the same time, district finance committee members hear a series of budget presentations from each department throughout the spring, before a preliminary district budget is advertised in May and adopted in June.
During their Feb.11 finance committee meeting, Skrocki gave an update on the governor’s address, given the first week in February: “The governor’s proposal is simply a starting point; the final budget will be worked out through the Pennsylvania legislature,” before breaking down the specifics.
“Our special education subsidy will increase by $241,000; that’s 3.1 percent. The current year increase was $488,000 or 6.7 percent, so our current year increase was pretty much double what’s being proposed for next year,” he said.
Shapiro’s address also touched on a topic North Penn has discussed for years: funding for cyber and charter schools, which district staff and school board members have argued currently overpays those operations well beyond what they need to educate their students.
“There is proposed a static $8,000 per student flat rate, in the commonwealth. That was proposed last year, as well. That didn’t happen. If enacted, North Penn would save $2.2 million if there was a flat $8,000 cyber rate,” he said.
“The rate we’re paying now to cyber schools is about $17,000 for a regular education student. What’s happening with that spread, between the $8,000 and $17,000: advertising, gift cards, phones, parade floats, cars, lavish meals, buying buildings when you’re a cyber school,” Skrocki said.
That list promoted several board members to joke that Skrocki was sounding off one last time on one of his favorite topics before his retirement, before the CFO added that the largest cyber school in the state has purchased roughly 20 buildings in the last five years.
“Why would a cyber school need over 20 buildings throughout the commonwealth? I’ll tell you why: because they have so much money, that they’re legally stealing from the taxpayers and school districts, they don’t know what to do with it. So to keep their fund balance low, they’ve spent tens of millions of dollars on real estate that I don’t think they need,” Skrocki said.
“Reducing that rate to what it costs them to provide a cyber education, is something that’s been elusive so far. And quite frankly, with the lobby and the money behind it, in my opinion, it’ll be like property tax reform — in 20 years, you’ll be talking about this very same topic,” he said.
Skrocki suggested board members and residents contact local legislators and support cyber funding reform, including efforts led by state Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146th, who spoke to the board in 2021 on the same topic.
“It is, once again, a complete fleecing of North Penn School District and every other school district in this state, a complete fleecing of the taxpayers. We are overpaying for services, not by a little, but by a lot each year,” he said.
Board member Jonathan Kassa then asked how the academic scores from those schools compare to brick-and-mortar education in North Penn, and Skrocki answered the cybers put up “absolutely horrific student achievement numbers,” a statement superintendent Todd Bauer seconded.
“Every metric, from attendance, to student achievement data, to graduation rates, is abysmal,” Bauer said.
One other voice has entered the conversation urging cyber reform: The state’s auditor general has issued a performance audit of the state’s five largest charter schools, noting they had more than doubled their reserve funds from 2020 to 2023, “due in part to an outdated funding formula that does not use actual instruction costs to determine tuition, does not set guidelines for spending, or set limits for cyber charter school reserves,” he said.
That report notes that the current funding formula was developed in 2002: “we were still using dialup access to the internet, floppy discs were the best way to store data, and the iPhone and the iPad were not yet invented. So kudos to the auditor general for making these recommendations, and recognizing what I term as the fleecing of the taxpayers,” Skrocki said.
Board member Tina Stoll then asked the CFO why he thought the state house had taken no action, citing calls from districts across the state for a fix: “If that many people, on both sides of the aisle, and school districts that are rural, suburban, urban, all are asking for charter school reform, what are they waiting for?” and Skrocki answered: “I would say three words in response: Follow the money.”
North Penn’s finance committee next meets at 6 p.m. on March 11 and 18 and the full school board next meets at 7 p.m. on March 11; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.
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