State to reimburse $13.2M to school districts
State Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-19th Dist., announced Tuesday that Chester County school districts will receive more than $13.2 million in total state funding for reimbursements for major construction projects. In The Mercury’s coverage area, districts will receive a combined total of $1.35 million.
The funds were distrib- uted under Act 25 of 2016, which authorized a bond to make reimbursement payments to school districts under PlanCon, the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s system for funding school-building projects.
“Many of these reimbursements were outstanding and the projects had been on hold too long,” Dinniman, who serves as minority chair of the Senate Education Committee, said in a statement. “I am pleased to see that school districts have now received their reimbursements and I am committed to continuing to work to improve and update the PlanCon process.”
Reimbursements were made to school districts in two payments. The November payment amounted to more than $6.8 million in total. The December payment was about $6.4 million in total.
In The Mercury’s coverage area, the Owen J. Roberts School District received approximately $876,000 combined be- tween November and December. The Phoenixville Area School District received approximately $474,000 combined.
Dinniman is also a member of the Public School Building Construction and Reconstruction Advisory Committee, also known as the PlanCon Committee. The committee was established under Act 25 to find recommendations on how to improve the PlanCon program, which handles school construction, reconstruction and the lease of public school buildings, according to the release.
“PlanCon has been delayed for so long that school districts throughout Chester County were owed millions in construction funding,” Dinniman said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the committee to resolving this gridlock to ensure that funds for construction and reconstruction flowing back to school districts on time. We must revamp PlanCon into a sustainable and effective program that prop- erly serves our schools and our students.”