FY12 Budget update: not so good news (now updated)

We got a written update on the FY12 budget last night.
The short version: we've got $769,202 less than we expected, due to the Legislature not fully funding the charter reimbursement.
The charter tuition rate reimbursment level is down $625, 311
The charter tutition assessment is up $155,952

WPS set aside $350,000 during the budget process out of concern over this (most particularly that the state doesn't include transportation in the Abby Kelley Foster assessment until the end), so there's $419,202 left to find, which we are assured administration can find without touching classrooms.


Here's the part that's an update: the state level funded education, with some exceptions (including the circuit breaker, which went up, for which we are grateful). The Board of Ed, however, approved sixteen new charter schools this spring. The Legislature, trying to preserve ed funding in an incredibly difficult year, level funded charter school reimbursement. With sixteen new schools and the same amount of money, though, no one was going to get the money they needed.
And we just didn't.
Note, though, that the state simply now says to Worcester (and any such district around the state) "you must come up with a way to pay this." The Board of Ed authorizes the school; the Legislature underfunds it; the district gets stuck with the bill.
In Worcester's case, that's half a million dollars that we now need to "find" in our budget. It will directly be a cut in our programs that will fund charter school programs over which we have no fiduciary control.