NC Senate committee recommends amended education bills on payments to charter schools and school nutrition programs

Another bill would speed up the timeline in which public school districts must pass funding to charter schools. That bill, House Bill 335, has been re-referred to the Senate’s Committee on Rules and Operations.

House Bill 335 is not opposed by statewide charter school and school administration groups and passed through the education committee after questions about when and how districts’ would be liable for a late payment.

Already, school districts must cut checks to charter schools that operate within the district’s boundaries for each student in those boundaries that attends the charter school. The state does not directly fund the charter schools per pupil, necessitating the local transaction. Current law requires the payment within 30 days.

House Bill 335 shortens the window to 15 days and subjects any tardy school districts to a late fee. It’s been amended to clarify that the late fee would not apply if the amount of money to be sent to the charter school is in dispute. The 15-day window would also only begin after the school district has received its local current expense funds from the state.

House Bill 159 seeks to limit the percent of indirect fees a school district assesses to their school nutrition programs for operating those programs.

The Senate committee gave favorable review to the bill Wednesday but Senators will be re-working it in the Senate Finance Committee after critics objected to the limits in the bill, contending that some school districts would not be able break even on their school nutrition programs if they aren’t able to assess high indirect costs.

Current law states that districts can assess a fee for indirect costs — such as administrative costs — if their school nutrition programs have at least one month’s operating balance. The bill presented to the committee Wednesday would have changed that to three months’ operating balance and limited the percentage assessed to 8%. State officials told the committee only about one in five districts currently have three months’ operating balance and that districts often assess indirect fees at rates as high as 18%.

The changes risk schools having to dip into other funds to make their school nutrition programs solvent, Mark Winters, speaking on behalf of the North Carolina Association of School Administrators, told the committee.

“Money would most likely come from other important programs,” Winters said.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction supports the bill, and a DPI official told the committee the state’s cap on assessment percentage would mirror the federal government’s cap on assessment for the school nutrition program.

The committee suggested an amended version of the bill Wednesday that lowers the operating balance threshold to two months, instead of three.