Letter to the Editor: Jim Bobeck grateful for Luzerne County Council tenure and all who made it possible

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Test Kitchen: Conquer the cold with one-hour chili

If budgets were LEGO brick sets, this one would require a genius to assemble &#8212; or perhaps an &#8220;idiot savant,&#8221; someone who gets it right without really knowing how.Gov. Tom Wolf released state education money this week without actually resolving the budget impasse that began July 1, but even the school district officials grateful for the cash are struggling to figure out what&#8217;s what. And figuring it out is essential, because by state law, business managers are already trying to suss out next year&#8217;s budgets for their districts.&#8220;The whole process is convoluted,&#8221; Wyoming Valley West Finance Manager Joe Rodriquez said. &#8220;We&#8217;re required by law to make a decision this month as to whether we will exceed the Act 1 (tax increase) limit or stay below it, and to formulate a budget based on that decision.&#8221;Which means districts are drawing up budgets for next year even though Harrisburg &#8220;is nearly seven months without a budget this year,&#8221; he added.Officially, districts had until Jan. 7 to either file a preliminary budget for public inspection or approve a resolution promising not to exceed the annual tax limit. Few local districts have taken action, though.Rodriguez noted the board opted not to hold a special meeting this week to decide, and that the matter will wait until the Jan. 13 monthly meeting. Wilkes-Barre Area Business Manager Leonard Przywara said the issue is set to come up at Monday&#8217;s regular meeting. The Dallas School District did vote Monday to exceed the limit, but that doesn&#8217;t mean the final budget will.&#8220;It&#8217;s a mess,&#8221; Dallas Business Manager Grant Palfey said of the budgeting process. Districts can only exceed the limit by either getting a state exemption or through voter approval of a referendum in the spring primary.&#8220;Think about that. To do a referendum this year, you have to have the referendum question ready by Feb. 26,&#8221; Palfey said. Yet districts don&#8217;t know how much state money they will get this year, much less next. In asking voters to approve a tax increase, he asked, &#8220;how do you have any clue if your budget is accurate?&#8221;Dallas got about $4.4 million this week from the state, Palfey said. Wyoming Valley West received $13.2 million, Rodriguez said, but even that is hard to parse.&#8220;I didn&#8217;t get them all filed yet,&#8221; Rodriguez said Tuesday. &#8220;There are 21 different subsidies.&#8221;The state sent out money covering subsidies through Dec. 31 for basic education, special education, Ready to Learn grants, pension fund payments, social security payments, transportation costs, and property tax relief. Some of those, particularly social security, were broken down into multiple subsidy units.While the state Department of Education posted how much each district got in basic education and Ready To Learn money, district-level data for the other subsidies was not made available, and much of it won&#8217;t be for some time.The Department of Education doesn&#8217;t release information on transportation and social security subsidies &#8220;until school districts submit their annual financial reports,&#8221; PDE spokeswoman Nicole Reigelman noted in an email.Przywara noted the money received for pension subsidies has no real impact on school budgets at this point. Within the next few days, districts must forward it to the agency that runs the pension fund, the state Public School Employees&#8217; Retirement System.Districts and the state split payments to the pension fund roughly in half. Typically, the district pays the full amount, set by PSERS, then gets reimbursed from the state. Because of the impasse this year, districts were given the option of not paying the state&#8217;s share until the subsidy arrived.Wolf approved the entire amount proposed by the legislature for special education, and the state only provided the total districts can expect for the whole year, not breaking out how much they got this week. Basic education money is a different beast, and remains a primary logjam damming the budget process.Wolf wanted more than the $6.7 billion total education money offered by the legislature. He approved $3.6 billion and vetoed the rest, urging legislators to submit new final numbers. He then doled out basic education money for six months, breaking down how much each district got and how much they would get if a compromise budget had not been rejected by the House of Representatives.The limited education money doled out this week has been dubbed by many as a &#8220;stopgap&#8221; budget, assuming more will come. But districts are left wondering how big the gap is, and how much more they can expect. Wolf&#8217;s numbers suggest they got about 47 percent of the total they can expect in basic education, assuming the legislature goes back to numbers similar to those in the rejected compromise.Rodriguez said he is in the process of developing a preliminary budget for 2016-17, but &#8220;it&#8217;s really hard to do with what&#8217;s happening in Harrisburg.&#8221; For now, he said, he&#8217;s assuming there will be a 3 percent increase in state funding next year.There&#8217;s one other unsettled piece to the state budget: Reimbursement for construction. Wolf&#8217;s predecessor Tom Corbett placed a moratorium on that program, which Wolf lifted. The compromise budget had included about $307 million for reimbursements already owed, but the budget sent to Wolf lacked it.For Wyoming Valley West, that&#8217;s a big deal. Rodriguez noted the district completed expansion and renovation of State Street Elementary three years ago, and is expecting $7 million or more in reimbursement. But the district still hasn&#8217;t received a penny.<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Mark Guydishmguydish@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</shirttailMeta></div>

Gap remains in “stopgap” education budget