Chester Community's total budget for the school year is about $40 million, school officials said. Most of its funding comes from the Chester Upland district, which says it can't make any payments to the charter because it needs all the money it has and more to pay its own employees and other school-related costs.
By state law, every school district must pay for the education of its students in charter schools, using a formula related to the cost of providing an education to students in its own schools.
But as early as April 2011, the Chester Upland district, saying it was running short of money because of revenue shortfalls and deficits carried over from previous years, stopped sending money to Chester Community Charter.
The state Department of Education, citing state law, started withholding Chester Upland's state subsidies and sending them to Chester Community Charter to pay off the amount the district owed.
Some of that subsidy was also taken by the state to repay a loan it had made to the district; as a result, the charter says it is owed $6.9 million from Chester Upland.
U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson ordered the state to send the Chester Upland District $3.2 million. Baylson also told the state to stop holding back Chester Upland subsidies until he ruled otherwise.
Baylson's order sending state subsidies to the district instead of Chester Community Charter could cut off money to the charter.
The charter school has filed a motion with Baylson for an emergency reconsideration of his order; a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the district and the charter school, in a rare show of unity, teamed up last week to say they had identified millions in state budget funds they said were not committed to any project or district and could be used to tide both of them over until the end of June.
