The elimination of $224 million this year in state payments to school districts as partial compensation for their charter costs, plus the tough economic climate, lends new urgency to the call for change, he said.
Charters are funded mainly by state-required per-pupil payments from the districts where the students live. Payments are based on the cost of educating children in the home district, minus expenses such as transportation, adult education, and school district debt payments.
A separate special-education rate is linked to district special-education costs: on average, it is close to double the regular-education figure.
Pennsylvania has 149 regular charter schools and 13 online cybercharters, with about 90,000 students. In 2009-10, the latest year for which figures were available, districts paid them about $795 million.
Complaints about how charters are funded are not new. State Auditor General Jack Wagner called the system flawed in a 2010 report. He said payments should be based on actual charter expenses, not the costs of the sending districts.
Myers agrees, adding other objections. He has studied charter funding since 1997, when the charter law was enacted and he was the Philadelphia School District's budget director.
One of the main flaws in the funding system, Myers said, gives charters a "double dip" for retirement-fund payments.
School districts must include the cost of their retirement-fund contributions when calculating charter payments. The state then reimburses districts and charters that participate in the retirement fund (almost all do) for about half the total. That, Myers said, amounts to a double payment to charters.
