Schools receive financial assistance

Pennsylvania educates about 4,000 disabled children.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Gina Pastino entered her fourth year of teaching at a suburban Philadelphia school for autistic children last fall worried it might be her last.
The Timothy School in Berwyn has been struggling financially in recent years, along with 29 other state-licensed private schools for severely disabled children, because of a state funding shortfall of tens of millions of dollars.
But after months of letter-writing and lobbying at the Capitol by school officials and parents this year, the Legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell came through with some help: $80 million in state subsidies, a 19-percent increase over last year and a new formula to ensure that the so-called "approved private schools" are adequately funded.
"I'm just really happy that the kids will be safe," Pastino said. "We're a family here."
Deficit
The state Alliance of Approved Private Schools estimates that since the 1998-99 school year, the state's failure to reimburse the schools on time has created a combined deficit of $40 million to $50 million. To compensate, schools have had to borrow money, leave staff positions vacant and limit salary increases.
Under the new state budget, the education department will begin to repay that debt, starting with nearly $7 million this year. That's in addition to the $80 million in regular subsidies the schools will share. Gerald Zahorchak, the state's deputy secretary for elementary and secondary education, estimated it will take three to five years to close the schools' deficits.
The state and school districts share the cost of educating about 4,000 children who struggle with physical and mental disabilities ranging from autism to cerebral palsy. State aid is supposed to cover about 60 percent of tuition costs.
The education department has typically advanced a portion of the state funding to the schools at the beginning of the year, then audited their spending to determine whether the schools' spending matches their budget projections.
Compensation
A special fund was supposed to compensate for any shortfalls, but the schools have complained that the state has fallen behind on its audits in recent years, and the resolution fund was depleted during the 2003-04 school year.
A school-code bill passed with the state budget created a formula that calls for the state to establish at the beginning of the fiscal year how much state and local funding each school will receive.
"The schools are going to know upfront what funding is going to be available, and it relieves this unnecessary burden of waiting what has been years for these audits to be resolved," Zahorchak said.
"We're hoping that in the future, we'll be able to look at finding ways to address growing needs for these schools in other parts of the state," said Geoffrey Axe, an administrator at Valley Day School in Morrisville and president of the Alliance of Approved Private Schools.
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