Pasco School Board nixes capital fund sharing with charter schools

Citing concerns about promising money they can't assure, Pasco County School Board members on Tuesday killed an effort to craft a plan for sharing capital funds with local charter schools."Our budget changes every year," board member Steve Luikart observed. "We can't guarantee something that is not guaranteed to us."District officials brought the idea of creating a sharing plan, based on criteria such as student demographics and performance standards, to the board in early August. They did so at the behest of charter operators, who worried that without some arrangement they might have no money in 2019-20 to cover maintenance and facilities expenses. Related coverage: Pasco School Board to discuss whether to share capital funding with charter schools Their concerns stemmed from legislation that exempts school districts with high debt ratios for construction projects from sharing their property tax revenue with the charters. Lawmakers fully covered a charter construction and maintenance budget of about $150 million this year, but have indicated if they don't repeat that level in the future, districts will be on the hook for the difference.Pasco district leaders said they read the law ( Fl. Stat. 1013.62 ) to mean they're already supposed to contribute to the charter schools next year, if the Legislature doesn't step up. Charter officials, looking at a different section of the same law, suggested any decrease in state money could leave them with nothing to pay their bills.Pasco is one of three counties that met the debt criteria exempting them from sharing with charters. Related coverage: New law aiding charter schools leaves some of them behind Lawmakers "never removed that (debt) requirement," said John Legg, a former state senator who runs Dayspring Academy, the county's oldest charter school. "If they are required to share funds with us, there's no need for us to do anything."He said he was seeking clarification from the state on this interpretation.If the district is wrong, "we will very kindly point that out to them," Legg said.Natalie King, vice chair of the Pepin Academies Pasco board of directors, agreed that the issues are complex. She said she wanted to be sure everyone is relying on the same facts when debating the subject.At the end of the day, King said charters wanted a predictable source of revenue."It is a year to year question we have to grapple with," she said, noting Pepin Academies Pasco has struggled to find a site it can afford to build a campus upon. "We want to make sure the system is taking care of the kids."Deputy superintendent Ray Gadd said he and board attorney Dennis Alfonso explored several possible criteria for an "incentive" program through which the district would give a portion of its tax revenue to qualified charters.Those might include schools that serve targeted groups, such as students with special needs or students living in poverty.But concerns arose about how to set those criteria fairly, whether the district would carry the obligation at the risk of its own debts, and whether schools that did not qualify could sue on equity grounds."More and more I'm trying to squeeze this square peg in a round hole, and frankly I don't know how to do it in a way that benefits all involved," Gadd told the board.Board members shared his views."Charter schools definitely are part of the landscape. … We need to be good partners with them," chairwoman Cynthia Armstrong said. "But we also need to look at being financially responsible too."She and others anticipated the conversation continuing, especially if the charters face dire financial woes."They are our schools, our children and our parents," vice chairwoman Alison Crumbley said. "We are not going to let them fall in the cracks."Legg, whose charter had sought a sharing plan as part of its contract renewal, said he expected to ask lawmakers to amend the law if the School Board doesn't change its approach."We'll be happy to approach the Legislature with addressing the inequity in Pasco," he said. "At least we got a 'no.' Before, we didn't even get an answer."

Pasco School Board nixes capital fund sharing with charter schools

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