Lackawanna City School District - Tuition (2019M-59)

Publisher's summary

School districts are required to pay tuition for resident students attending charter schools or receiving special education services from other public or private schools. We recalculated tuition costs and full-time equivalents (FTEs) using attendance records for charter school students and special education students' individualized education programs (IEPs) to verify that the District was billed for the correct services and frequency. We found that tuition was incorrectly calculated for nine students. The District was overbilled $5,300 for eight charter school students. The billing school used the correct rate for those students but used the incorrect FTE to calculate the tuition, resulting in overbilling. Additionally, the District was underbilled by a private school $900 for one special education student. The billing school used the incorrect rate when calculating tuition. We also found that the District did not have adequate and up-to-date residency information to support tuition charges totaling $2.5 million for 162 students (77 percent) attending charter schools and other public or private schools. The District had no registration or residency information on file for 44 of these students and registration information that was out-of-date and/or incomplete for the remaining 118 students.