As Warren County School District prepares to submit its annual budget to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, one line-item generated some discussion at Monday’s meeting of the school board.

“Pennsylvania sets so much aside for each child for education,” Board Member Mary Passinger said. “Cyber (charter) schools are getting whatever the amount is.”

The district has an in-house option for those who would like to attend classes virtually – the Virtual Academy.

For all others, the district pays about $12,000 per year per student for regular education students who live in its attendance area that attend public charter or cyber charter schools.

For students with special needs, the dollar amount is about $28,000.

Including Tidioute Community Charter School, almost $6 million of the district’s $93 million in expenditures next year will go to charter schools.

School Board Member Jeff Dougherty said he was “shocked” at “how much money our district pays out to charter schools.”

He said having to make those payments “hurts our district and our taxpayers.”

Charter schools are privately-operated public schools. They do not charge tuition and receive the majority of their funding from sending school districts, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

An evaluation of spending by charter schools discussed by the board members found that some of the largest cyber charter schools, with funding through school districts from property taxes, paid millions on advertising in the subject years.

At least one sponsored a minor league baseball team, according to Passinger.

They can afford to do so, she said, because overhead costs, like those with a traditional school district or a brick-and-mortar charter school, are low and “they have nothing else to spend this money on.”