The district wants to cap enrollment at 625 students. Right now, the charter school has more than 900 between two buildings. 

Three years ago, the district reportedly began withholding tuition money based on the enrollment cap it wants.

To read more: http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/education/charter-school-sues-district-for-$1.7m

Waving signs and holding banners imploring lawmakers and the governor to raise taxes rather than cut social services, hundreds of human service providers and recipients rallied in the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg today. The statewide coalition brought together people who provide drug and alcohol treatment, job training and other social, mental health and disability services for a day of lobbying their state lawmakers.

Advocates called for closing the so-called “Delaware loophole” so that more corporations pay state income taxes to Pennsylvania as one way to raise revenue so that social service programs do not face budget cuts.

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Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and the House Democrats’ revenue plan to fund the 2010-11 state budget calls for directing $340 million of tobacco settlement funds, which are part of a $206 billion multi-state settlement with tobacco companies to compensate for smoking-related health expenses, into the general fund to pay for general government operations.

This is being proposed as a one-time fix to help the state fill an anticipated $1.6 billion revenue hole.

Programs such as smoking cessation and prevention that have come to rely on the settlement money would be paid for services provided in 2010-11, but that money wouldn’t be allocated until payments are received in 2011, said Johnna Pro, a spokeswoman to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia. She described it as an accounting maneuver that moves away from “prospective” funding of health-related programs for the coming year to funding them after the fact.

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HARRISBURG — It’s unlikely lawmakers will tax the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus shale formation in the 2011 budget, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati said Tuesday.

Gov. Ed Rendell is pushing the tax as a way to help close a $1.3 billion deficit expected by June 30. But Scarnati, the lieutenant governor, said although such a tax probably is inevitable, the Legislature isn’t prepared to pass it immediately. He cited issues that must be explored, ranging from potential local government regulations and eminent domain to taxation policies on other natural resources such as coal.

“I don’t see a path to getting it done,” said Scarnati, the Senate’s top elected Republican from Jefferson County, who lives about 15 miles from a well operated by a Texas company where a blowout occurred last week when drillers encountered unexpectedly high pressure in the well.

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HARRISBURG – State lawmakers return today to face the fiscal problems of “budget season” but with fewer realistic options available than last year to solve them.

The tax revenue shortfall at $1.2 billion and counting is daunting; taxpayers are angry; the economy remains fragile with high unemployment; and the demand for social services is unabated.

At the first major budget negotiating session between Gov. Ed Rendell and legislative leaders last week, the players discussed more spending cuts, smaller targeted tax hikes and transfers from special state funds to the General Fund to erase the deficit. But large-scale tax hikes or another major expansion of gambling are not on the horizon.

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This year – with recession-ravaged revenue trickling in below projections, and most legislators facing reelection – consensus could prove even harder to reach by the June 30 deadline.

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