Take action to avert collapse of Chester-Upland district

By Tom Wolf

All of Pennsylvania's children deserve a high-quality education, and as I have said, we must invest in our education system to make it stronger. But we cannot just throw money at any problem and hope for a good outcome.

Unfortunately, for 25 years, the Chester Upland School District has completely and utterly mismanaged its finances and failed its students, and over the last several years, the commonwealth's solution - through Republican and Democratic governors - has been to throw money at the problem year after year rather than find a sustainable solution. As a result, the district has been destroyed and the schoolchildren suffer the most.

Chester Upland was first classified as financially distressed in 1994, and in the district's 2015-16 budget, even with the increases I proposed in my budget, there will be a projected budget deficit of more than $22 million. If the commonwealth does not act to fix this, Chester Upland's accumulated debt will total more than $46 million.

Over just the last five years, the district has received $74.25 million in state funding from one-time, unsustainable cash infusions that only provided temporary fixes and masked a recurring crisis. The problems that Chester Upland is facing date back to 1990 and have persisted to this day. No matter how you look at it, the district is financially unstable and academically distressed.

Along with Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera and Francis Barnes, receiver of the district, I have proposed a bold plan to right the district's financial ship to ensure that we are providing the resources to children that they need to learn. Without this action, there are no viable options to open the district's doors, much less keep them open throughout the school year, and the current budget shortfall will only worsen.

The current and accumulated budget deficits reflect poor fiscal management, chronic overspending, a weak tax base, and high costs controlled by charter and cyber charter school payments.

From 2003 to '09, the district overspent by a total of $25.1 million, and from 2009 to 2012, it overspent by $19.3 million. Under the current law, the district is required to pay the charter schools an inflated amount - an astonishing $40,315 - for each special-education student. This is more than twice the amount it expends on its own students with special-education needs, far more than any other district in the commonwealth does, and it does not reflect the actual expenditures or students served in the charter schools.

All of this means that children remaining in the district are left without the resources necessary for a quality education.

The financial situation at Chester Upland is dire, and there is no question that this is the end of the road for the district. We can no longer accept the status quo. The commonwealth must stop providing Band-Aids and temporary fixes. Without drastic corrective action, the district will not continue to exist.

My administration has proposed a sustainable plan to fix the district's finances and keep its doors open:

Initiate a forensic audit to assure that funds are being spent properly and to identify potential savings for 2015-16.

Bring in a financial turnaround specialist to find immediate savings in the 2015-16 school year and to try to mitigate the district's debt.

Implement the rate proposed by the Special Education Funding Commission for special-education students in brick-and-mortar charter schools to better reflect actual expenses and student counts. This would produce an estimated savings to the district of $20.7 million in 2015-16.

Implement a tuition cap of $5,950 per regular-education student and the rate proposed by the Special Education Funding Commission for special-education students in cyber charter schools to better reflect actual costs and student counts. This would produce an estimated savings of $4 million in 2015-16.

Engage a financial management firm to achieve savings immediately in 2015-16 and beyond.

Restructure a loan agreement that the district has with the state Department of Education to delay the first payment toward a $10 million loan.

Right now, as has been the case in the past, Chester Upland is on the verge of collapse, and there are no other options. My administration is taking dramatic action because we cannot afford the toll this potential disaster could take on the children of this district. When a child in Chester Upland receives a quality education, all our lives are enriched.

Not one parent, not one child, not one teacher should have to continue to suffer each year due to financial mismanagement and bad decisions made by the district and Harrisburg politicians.

The time is now, and this action is the right one to save this district.