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    Charter School Funding

    Instructions for Submitting Charter School Subsidy Redirection Requests to PDE

    Pursuant to 24 P.S. § 17-1725-A(a)(5), a charter school can request that PDE redirect a school district’s subsidy when the charter school believes the school district failed to pay the charter school for the education of its resident students. The school district then has the opportunity to challenge the redirection request pursuant to 24 P.S. § 17-1725-A(a)(6). The redirection request, whether a current-year invoice (Invoice) or prior-year reconciliation (Reconciliation), must be in writing, must include the documentation and information described below, and must include the appropriate signature on the verification statement.

    Required Documentation and Information

    1. Summary of Unipay Request
    2. Tuition Rate template
    3. Student List template
    • Include supporting documentation for PDE-363 calculated by either school district or charter school:
    • If using a charter school-calculated PDE-363, the PDE-363 must demonstrate the deductions from the school district’s total expenditures, including federal expenditures, prekindergarten program expenditures, Ready to Learn Block Grant revenues, and Early Intervention expenditures as identified on the PDE-363. The charter school must identify in notes the source and date of data (school district budget or other financial document and ADM) that it relied upon in completing the PDE-363.
      • Failure to submit a completed PDE-363, or failure to deduct the expenditures listed on the PDE-363, will result in the return to the charter school of its redirection request with instructions on how to correct the errors and submit a redirection request no earlier than the next submission cycle.
    • If using a school district-calculated PDE-363, the form must include an authentic signature from the superintendent.

    Note: As a courtesy, if a school district submits a completed PDE-363 to PDE, the rates will be posted in an Excel spreadsheet on PDE’s publicly-available website. PDE will not verify the information contained in the school district’s PDE-363. If a school district’s PDE-363 rates have been posted on PDE’s website, a charter school does not need to attach that PDE-363 to its redirection request but instead must reference the rates posted on PDE’s website

    PDE Review Process

    PDE will review redirection requests only after the “submission window” (see Requirements for Processing, Timeline, 1., below) closes.

    Charter schools are required to submit proper documentation with each redirection request. This is done using the Consolidated Financial Reporting System (CFRS), Charter School Redirection module (CSR). Excel templates to be uploaded to CFRS-CSR for a redirection request to PDE can be found on the Charter School Funding page. This documentation is necessary to ensure that PDE can properly account for the public funds entrusted to it by the General Assembly and to make certain that school districts are provided with sufficient information to object to a redirection request submitted by a charter school. Therefore, all redirection requests must meet all the belowlisted criteria. Any redirection requests with errors in one or more of these items will be returned. Please note that all returned redirection requests, regardless of the reason for the return, cannot be resubmitted for processing until the next monthly Unipay cycle. For returned requests related to the June Unipay, requests must be resubmitted as a Reconciliation after July 1.

    Requirements for Processing

    All subsidy redirection requests must comply with all of the requirements below to be processed with the Unipay in the month after submission.

    1. The redirection request must be received between the 15th and 25th of the month for deduction and payment on the last Thursday of the next month pending available subsidies. Refer to the CS Submission Timeline on the PDE website.  Note: Prior to sending to PDE, requests must first be provided to school districts with sufficient time to pay by 5th of month. Requests may only be submitted for enrollment up to the month in which the request was submitted to PDE.
    2. For a Reconciliation, a request must first be provided to the school district on or after July 1 AND no later than October 1. As indicated in the CS Submission Timeline, April 25th is the last date by which a Reconciliation redirection request may be submitted to PDE; however, charter schools are encouraged to submit the reconciliation request earlier to PDE if it is prepared to do so. A request can only be sent to PDE after being sent to the school district.
    3. If a charter school needs to revise its request on or before the 25th deadline, it may request that PDE reopen the submission. Templates uploaded after a reopened submission will overwrite the previously uploaded template. Note that CFRS-CSR will automatically close after 11:59 p.m.

    Note: If the charter school received a direct payment from a school district and needs to rescind the redirection request for that specific school district, the charter school must 1) request that the submission be reopened (if the window is still open) and 2) upload revised Student List and Tuition Rates templates to remove the student(s) and school districts related to the direct payment received before resubmitting the redirection request. If the submission window has already closed, the charter school should notify PDE via email at ra-CSFunding@pa.gov and provide PDE with the name of the school district to be removed from the requested redirection request.

    1. The request must be submitted electronically via the CFRS application in the CSR module..
    2. Redirection requests must include all required documents—Student List template, Tuition Rates template, Direct Payments template (if applicable), and documentation supporting tuition rates if based on a SD-or CS-created PDE-363. If needed, the charter school must include notes that identify the school district financial document used by the charter school to prepare the PDE-363.
    3. Redirection requests must include an authentic signature (i.e., not a typed or cursive font or a stamp) on the Summary of Unipay Request.
    4. The redirection request must only include documentation for the school districts for which the charter school is requesting subsidy redirection.
    5. In the Notes field in CFRS-CSR, the charter school must include a statement that describes the source of the tuition rates used if tuition rates were based on a source other than the latest Excel file on PDE’s website during the submission window.
      • If the tuition rates used were calculated by the school district, the PDE-363 from that school district must be attached,
      • If the tuition rates used were calculated by the charter school, the PDE-363 attached by the charter school must include deductions for Ready to Learn Block Grant revenues, federal funds expenditures, prekindergarten program expenditures, and Early Intervention expenditures as identified on the PDE-363. The charter school must identify the school district budget or other financial document that it relied upon in completing the PDE-363. In addition, the CS-completed PDE-363 must show contact information for the charter school.

    1. The maximum enrollment month on redirection requests cannot exceed the month in which the request was submitted to PDE (e.g., request made by July 25 cannot include enrollment after July).
    2. The Direct Payments template must only include payments for the school year being requested on the redirection request (i.e., no prior-year payments or amounts owed should be included).
    3. Refund from Charter School on the Direct Payments template cannot include negative dollar amounts.

    Questions may be directed to ra-CSFunding@pa.gov.