‘ Fiscal austerity’ needed in CUSD

It’s not the best news, but it’s the best news story written on the crisis in the Chester-Upland School District.

If you read this blog, you’re probably like me and read a lot of stuff. Rarely does an article have me hanging on every word like this one.

Since this time last year, the Chester-Upland School District financial problems have played out like a made for TV docu-drama. This article serves as the season finale where all the loose ends are finally tied together in a concluding episode.

Quotes like these spice up the action...

Chester Upland ran out of money in January and filed a federal lawsuit against the state for the money needed to keep schools operating through the end of the school year in June. The district claimed it ran out of money due to state budget cuts, among other factors. The state argued years of mismanagement led to the district’s financial woes.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education seeks to keep Chester Upland and its charters operating through June by strictly using the remaining state allocations available.

Chester Upland’s financial records are in “complete disarray”

Persing said he would welcome a third party that could examine the district’s finances while keeping an eye toward the next fiscal year.

“Report and Recommendation Regarding Funding for District and Charter Schools Serving Children in the Chester Upland School District,” strictly focuses on funding the final four months of the current school year.

the report recommended the district defer several payments, including $ 2.26 million for summer accrual salaries, $ 1.32 million in employee benefits and $ 864,350 in vendor payments.

“It would be a financial disaster for us,” Persing said. “If we have inadequate funding that’s based on the current formulas … that would only compound the adverse effects for ’ 12- 13. How in the name of heaven are we going to go in to a balanced budget?”

Bruce Crawley, spokesman for Community Charter, said it was a “dark day.”

 “Instead of paying CCCS the $ 11.8 million that is already owed and the $ 9 million that it will be owed from April through June, the Secretary in a show of plain disregard for the educational consequences has declared that he will only give CCCS less than half of its vital funding — letting the chips fall where they may for the 3,000 students it serves,”

(Dan Hanson, spokesman for Widener University, which operates the nonprofit charter, said...) “It is regrettable that Secretary Tomalis has recommended that all schools serving students in the Chester Upland School District should pay for the fiscal mismanagement of the district and for the shortcomings in the funding mechanisms of the state’s own charter law.”