ALERT! There is movement in the House of Representatives to move HB 618 to a vote of the full House potentially today or tomorrow. It continues to be our position that HB 618 includes many positive changes to the charter school law, with one financially devastating exception - a provision which allows districts to withhold 100% of the pension costs to cyber charter schools. This would enable districts to retain taxpayer money, and receive state reimbursement, for expenses they simply do not incur while forcing underfunding of the pension liability for the cyber schools. This would simply replace a “cyber double dip” with a “district double dip”. Either of two amendments offered by Representative Christiana or Representative Maher would address this devastating provision in HB 618 and make it the foundation for a comprehensive charter reform package. Go to the PA Charter School Coalition website pacharters.org and ACT NOW to contact your Representative to vote against HB 618 if it does not include either the Christiana or Maher amendments. Rep. Jim Christiana says: Please vote NO on HB 618! “Vote NO on House Bill 618 which is flawed in it structure, uses the pretense of an unrelated pension contribution glitch to gut charter school funding way beyond any so-called “double dip”, creates a new double dip for school districts, and allows districts to keep tens of millions of dollars for expenses that they simply do not have. House Bill 618 will result in 100 layoffs at our school in the next year, will force class sizes to rise and vital services to our vulnerable student population to be reduced. The Bill is unfair, severe and does not accomplish any goals in the area of pension reform. It is a bad piece of legislation for Pennsylvania citizens and taxpayers and an unwarranted attack on charter school students, families and educators. Please Vote NO on House Bill 618.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:14:06 +0000
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