Charter schools in limbo amid budget concerns

Philadelphia's public-charter- school movement may come to a near standstill, while class sizes in struggling elementary schools will shrink and art-and-music instruction will get a boost across the city, according to preliminary budget figures for the 2008-09 school year, which were released yesterday.

Overall, the early budget picture is much improved from last spring, when the deficit stood at $181 million.

The school district will end the fiscal year on June 30 with a $21 million budget deficit, according to the "lump-sum" budget statement approved by the School Reform Commission yesterday.

District officials attributed that deficit to increased fuel and utility costs, turbulence in the financial markets and larger-than-anticipated enrollments at cyber charter schools.

The final budget must be balanced and adopted by May 31, according to state law.

"This lump-sum budget . . . shows a real commitment from the SRC and the district to do the right thing with the resources provided," said Tom Brady, the district's interim chief executive officer.

More funding from the state and city also helped retire much of the deficit, school officials said.

But Brady cautioned that because the district is still underfunded by close to $1 billion a year, more spending cuts will have to be made to balance the books, and that opening more than two previously approved charter schools s would be difficult.

That would be a blow to supporters of publicly funded, independently operated charter schools. There are 17 applications to open charters this fall - six submitted to the SRC during this academic year and 11 submitted during 2006-07.

Based on a series of assumptions - including that $85 million in proposed new state funding will be forthcoming - the district will have a $2.30 billion operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, up from the current $2.18 billion budget.

The budget statement indicates that the $2.3 billion in anticipated expenditures will outstrip the $2.28 billion in anticipated revenues, leaving a projected deficit of $38.9 million at the end of next school year.

Plans call for that deficit, which includes the $21 million that will carry over from this fiscal year, to be retired through yet-to-be-announced cuts, belt-tightening and additional state-city funding, Brady said.

About 60 percent of the district's operating budget comes from the state and 40 percent from the city, officials said.

The budget statement includes a 3 percent raise owed to teachers under their current contract, which expires in August, said Wayne Harris, district budget director.

Also, the statement includes $15.4 million to make good on a promise made by the SRC in the fall to fund reduced class sizes in some kindergarten-through-third-grade classrooms, and to provide each of the district's schools with some measure of art- and-music instruction.

The schools that will get smaller classes are among the 70 lowest-performing schools, as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind law.

An additional 121 teachers will be placed in these schools to reduce class sizes to a ratio of 22 students per teacher, Harris said.

The budget statement also includes: $317 million for 63 charter schools; $163.4 million for various academic reforms in district-managed schools, and $154.1 million for incremental debt service to modernize schools, create small high schools and expand schools to serve grades kindergarten through eighth. *