Amendment ID: S2262-17-R1

Redraft Amendment 17

Charter School Reimbursement

Mr. Lewis moves to amend the bill by inserting after section 51 the following section:-

“SECTION 51A. Said section 89 of said chapter 71, as so appearing, is hereby amended by striking out subsection (ff) and inserting in place thereof the following subsection:-

(ff) For each student enrolling in a charter school, the sending district shall pay a tuition amount to the charter school, which shall be equal to 75 per cent of the actual per pupil spending amount in the sending school district for the education of such student, but not more than $5,000; provided, however, that special education students’ tuition amount shall remain equal to the expense per student for the type of education required by the charter school student. In the case of a child residing in a municipality that belongs to a regional school district the tuition amount shall be deducted from the chapter 70 education aid of the school district appropriate to the grade level of the child.  The remaining tuition costs for each charter school student shall be appropriated to the charter school from the general fund.

If a charter school student previously attended a private or parochial school or was home schooled, the commonwealth shall assume the first year cost for that student and shall not reduce the sending district’s chapter 70 aid for that student’s tuition in that fiscal year.

The state treasurer shall deduct a district’s total charter school tuition amount, as calculated herein, from the total state school aid, under chapter 70, of the district in which the student resides prior to the distribution of said aid. If, in a single district, the total of all such deductions exceeds the total state aid appropriated, the commonwealth shall appropriate this excess amount; provided, however, that if said district has exempted itself from the provisions of said chapter 70 by accepting section 14 of said chapter 70, the commonwealth shall assess said district for said excess amount. The amount required to be paid by the commonwealth under this section in any year shall not be reduced by a percentage greater than the per cent reduction in chapter 70 funding.

The state treasurer shall disburse to the charter school an amount equal to the charter school’s total charter school tuition amount as calculated under paragraph 1.

If more than 1 charter school is managed by a single network or board of trustees, funding shall not be transferred among individual schools within the network unless such schools are located in the same school district.

In the event of a charter school closing or eliminating grade levels as required by the board, the school district shall retain chapter 70 allotments for the students who attended those grade levels in the previous year."