Some Funding Restored To Parkland In State Budget

With the dust settled from Gov. Tom Corbett's state budget, the Parkland School District fared better than first anticipated, with $832,328 in proposed cuts having been restored.

However, the district still saw cuts of $1.2 million in funding, said John Vignone, the district's director of business administration.

"We can't lose that focus," Vignone said.

Money restored included:

* $683,569 in reimbursements for Parkland employees' Social Security taxes;

* $144,815 in accountability grants, which are used to pay for mandated professional development programs for teachers;  

* $3,944 more in basic education funding.

District officials earlier this year said they had anticipated the overall cuts to basic education funding -- it's back to 2008-2009 levels -- but, at the time, they were blind-sided by other proposed cuts, including in Social Security and charter school reimbursements and accountability grants.

While the Social Security reimbursements were restored before the final state budget was passed June 30, charter school reimbursements of $241,473 were not. Also, the accountability grants were less than half of past amounts.

Since the school board passed the 2011-2012 budget in June, more than a week before the state budget was passed, the changes in state funding would have an impact on future budgets, not the next school year's, district officials have said.

It's possible the district would not have to use the full $8.5 million from the fund balance that it budgeted, Vignone said. But there are "lot of variables" on the revenue side that it is difficult to say what the financial picture will be a year from now, he said. 

The district's $138 million budget raises taxes 3.8 percent for the 2011-2012 school years, freezes administrators' salaries and cuts 60 teacher and staff positions, about half through retirements and resignations.