Sdl To Get 17% Pa. Fund Increase
Posted on: Saturday, 5 July 2008, 03:00 CDT
By Meadows, Robyn
The Cinderella story in this year's state education budget is the School District of Lancaster. The district will receive 17 percent more money in basic-education funding for the 2008-09 school year than it did this past year.
That raises the Lancaster School District's state revenue for basic education by about $6.64 million to $45,199,003.
Countywide, the 2008-09 state budget will provide a total of $181,349,744 for basic education for the 16 public school districts - an increase of 5.7 percent, or $11,033,399, from 2007-08.
That compares with a 5.5 increase for districts statewide.
The numbers were provided this morning by the office of state Sen. Gib Armstrong, a Lancaster County Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. The numbers do not include the 2008- 09 totals for special education, alternative education and accountability block grants.
Lawmakers were moving toward a vote on a final state budget today.
I am very grateful for the additional moneys that Senator Armstrong was able to obtain for the School District of Lancaster, board President Patrick Snyder said. It will definitely go for the kids and for trying to increase our test scores.
Armstrong said there could be additional money for the School District of Lancaster for special programs. Lawmakers were still hammering out the details this morning.
Armstrong said he has been working hard to get the district more funds.
He also said that he implored school officials to pull your belt in a notch and to be extremely frugal with the increase.
Armstrong said he told district officials, I implore you to do everything you can not to have these horrendous tax increases in the city.
We can't turn this city around unless taxes stay low.
But not every district was as fortunate as the School District of Lancaster.
Solanco School District will receive a 3 percent increase, the lowest in the county.
School officials in Solanco could not be reached for comment today.
The second-highest percent increase in basic money goes to the Columbia School District, which will net $530,174 more, a jump of 9.5 percent.
Columbia School board President Tom Strickler said the district is anxious to hear how much it will get for special education.
I'll gladly take the state budget, we're not complaining, but Columbia has the highest percent of special-education students in the county, he said. We've been asking for years in Harrisburg for a change in our special-education formula.
Cocalico, Conestoga Valley, Lampeter-Strasburg and Donegal are set to receive increases of 6.9 percent, 6.5 percent, 6.3 percent and 6.1 percent respectively.
I don't know what got us that amount of an increase, but we greatly appreciate it, and we feel fortunate to get such an increase, L-S Superintendent Robert Frick said.
You never know what you're going to get...
Seven districts are set to garner increases of less than 4 percent.
Pequea Valley School District ties with Ephrata and Hempfield for the second-lowest increase, 3.4 percent.
There's no sense in complaining, Pequea Valley Business Manager John Bowden said. We'd love to have more state funding, but we'll make it work.
Meanwhile, school districts are waiting to find out how much money the state will award them to pay for special programs such as the governor's Classrooms for the Future initiative, Pre-K Counts and alternative education.
The Lancaster School District could receive up to $1 million more for alternative education.
Snyder said that money would be a welcome boon to the district, which has the lowest graduation rate in the county, at 67 percent. (Staff writers Dan Rorabaugh and Stephen Zook contributed to this report.)
(Copyright 2008 Lancaster Newspapers. All rights reserved.)
(c) 2008 Lancaster New Era. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Lancaster New Era
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