Northern Lehigh and Salisbury Township school districts have joined Bethlehem Area in withholding funds for charter schools in an attempt to share the pain of frozen state funding.
Northern Lehigh’s resolution, passed Monday, is the most expansive, authorizing the district to temporarily withhold 100% of public charter school and public cyber charter school tuition invoices during the budget impasse.
“If they’re not giving us money, it’s kind of senseless for us to have to take money out of our pot to pay charter schools when we’re not going to get money from the state,” Northern Lehigh School Board President Mathias Green Jr. said at Monday’s meeting.
“There isn’t a whole lot we can do to push back,” Green added. “Maybe that’s one of the little minor things that we can do.”
Salisbury Township’s resolution, passed Wednesday, echoes the one Bethlehem Area voted upon on Sept. 22, withholding from each charter school payment the percentage of funding the district receives from the state.
In Salisbury Township, that percentage is 21%. In Bethlehem Area, it’s 30%.
Northern Lehigh receives 21% of its revenue from state funds.
All the resolutions are temporary measures.
“This resolution simply ensures that charter schools share the impact of the state’s inaction in the same proportion that our own district is experiencing,” BASD Superintendent Jack Silva said at the Sept. 22 board meeting. “Let me be clear: this is a temporary measure. Once state funding is restored, full payments will resume and the charter schools will be made whole.”
Salisbury Township School Board President Joseph Gnall said districts are taking action as a message to the state to get its budget in line.
“We have hard and fast dates where we have to have ours. It’s only fair,” Gnall said. “So don’t expect us to pick up the weight. And if anybody wants to talk about that from the state, you know where to find me.”
In other budget action, Easton Area School District Superintendent Tracy Piazza announced at Tuesday’s school board committee meeting that district staff would need to prioritize their spending based on needs, rather than wants.
“We have asked our administration, and by default our teachers, to go into a spending curtailment,” Piazza said.
The district is asking for purchase orders to be approved at the executive team level and will suspend some after-school programs, Piazza said. After-school programs that are in partnership with community organizations or do not rely on federal or state funds will continue.
With both federal and state funds frozen, the district is relying on local funds, Piazza said, adding that there is not a need to issue bonds to meet payroll or other obligations.
“We also want to be proactive and make sure that we’re setting aside some money in case that federal or state money never comes through and we have to use district funds for things that were earmarked to come out of federal or state funding,” Piazza said.