Court Opinion

ID: 9751315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:20:47.337853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:42.687117
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge BROBSON.
I respectfully dissent.
Section 1725-A of the Charter School Law (Law)1 addresses funding for charter schools. Funding is on a per-enrolled-student basis, with separate calculations for special and non-special education students. Section 1725-A(a)(2), (3) of the Law. School districts are to remit to charter schools the appropriate amount for the enrolled students “in twelve (12) equal monthly payments, by the fifth day of each month, within the operating school year.” Section 1725-A(a)(5) of the Law.
The General Assembly anticipated that disputes would arise between charter schools and school districts over funding. It thus built into the Law a process to resolve such funding disputes:
(5) ... If a school district fails to make a payment to a charter school as prescribed in this clause, the secretary shall deduct the estimated amount, as documented by the charter school, from any and all State payments made to the district after receipt of documentation from the charter school. *
(6) Within thirty (30) days after the secretary makes the deduction described in clause (5), the school district may notify the secretary that the deduction made from State payments to the district under this subsection is inaccurate. The secretary shall provide the school district with an opportunity to be heard concerning whether the charter school documented that its students were enrolled in the charter school, the period of time during which each student was enrolled, the school district of residence of each student and whether the amounts deducted from the school district were accurate.
Section 1725-A(a)(5), (6) of the Law (emphasis added). In Chester Community Charter School v. Department of Education, 996 A.2d 68 (Pa.Cmwlth.2010) (Chester I), this Court held that “[t]here is no air in Section 1725-A(a)(5). The Secretary’s responsibility to withhold subsidies is mandatory and ministerial. There is no discretion to exercise because the estimated amount to be withheld is determined by the charter school’s documentation.” Chester I, 996 A.2d at 77-78. The Court continued:
*724The Department has a mandatory, non-discretionary duty to withhold subsidies to a school district based upon the estimated amount documented by the charter school. It is then incumbent upon the school district to request a hearing if it does not agree with the amount of the Department’s withholding. A prompt hearing could be conducted before any funds actually change hands. It is clear, however, that as between the school district and the charter school, the legislature has decided that more harm will befall a charter school that is not paid timely and accurately than upon a school district that may experience a delay in the receipt of the state subsidy to which it is entitled.
Id. at 78.
The majority opines that the duty of the Secretary to deduct under Section 1725-A(a)(5) only applies to funds appropriated by the State for the year in which the alleged underfunding occurred. (Maj. Op. at 722.) I respectfully disagree, because I cannot reconcile the majority’s position with the clear and unambiguous language chosen by the General Assembly, directing the Secretary to deduct the amount the charter school estimates from “any and all State payments made to the district after receipt of documentation from the charter school.” (Emphasis added.) The majority’s interpretation also cannot be reconciled with Section 1725-A(a)(6), pursuant to which the administrative hearing on a charter school’s claim of underpayment is triggered only after the school district is notified of the required deduction. This particular provision of the Law further supports my reading of Section 1725-A(a)(5) — i.e., that a deduction must be made in every case against any and, all State payments and not, as the majority posits, only in cases where there are yet-to-be distributed State funds for the school year in question. Otherwise, a school district might never be in a position to exercise the administrative remedy provided in the Law. Although the majority posits a reasonable alternative administrative remedy at page 13 of its opinion, which is consistent with its construction of Section 1725-A(a)(5), to account for this possibility, the alternative does not comport with the General Assembly’s intent as to how these funding disputes are to be resolved. I, therefore, cannot adopt it.2
*725Here, it is undisputed that beginning on April 27, 2007, Petitioner Chester Community Charter School (Charter School) notified the Pennsylvania Department of Education (Department) of its claim that the Chester-Upland School District (District) had underfunded the Charter School by $7 million over the course of eleven (11) school years and demanded that, pursuant to Section 1725-A(a)(5), the Secretary of Education (Secretary) deduct the Charter School’s estimated amount from all State payments to the District. It is also undisputed that the Secretary refused to do so and, instead, scheduled a hearing on the Charter School’s claim.
Based on these undisputed facts, the clear and unambiguous language of the Law, and this Court’s opinion in Chester I, I would grant summary relief in favor of the Charter School on Count I of its original jurisdiction petition for review (mandamus),3 and direct the Secretary to “deduct the estimated amount, as documented by the [Charter School], from any and all State payments made to the [District]” until such time as the dispute over the Charter School’s claim and the District’s defenses4 are adjudicated at the agency level. As the Court noted in Chester I, to the extent there are any concerns that the withholding required by the Law may adversely affect the District, the Secretary should act with all due haste in resolving the controversy.
Judges McCULLOUGH and COVEY join in this dissenting opinion.

. Act of March 10, 1949, P.L. 30, as amended, added by Section 1 of the Act of June 19, 1997, P.L. 225, 24 P.S. § 17-1725-A.

. The majority, in essence, adopts the position taken by the Department in its brief at pages 17 through 21. The position of the Department in this appeal, however, stands in stark contrast to how the Department handled a more recent funding dispute between the Philadelphia School District and the Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter School (Palmer Charter). School District of Philadelphia v. Department of Education, 41 A.3d 222 (Pa.Cmwlth.2012) (en banc). In that case, Palmer Charter claimed that the Philadelphia School District underfunded Palmer Charter during school years 2007-08, 2008-09, and 2009-10. Palmer Charter, however, did not request the withholding under Section 1725-A(a)(5) until July 13, 2010. Nonetheless, on September 10, 2010, the Department notified the Philadelphia School District that, based on Palmer Charter's request and pursuant to Section 1725-A(a)(5) of the Law, it withheld approximately $1.7 million from the Philadelphia School District’s next Basic Education Subsidy — i.e., an amount reflective of Palmer Charter's entire claim (not just the 2009-2010 school year). The Secretary then held the required hearing under Section 1725-A(a)(6), at the request of the Philadelphia School District. The Secretary then issued his adjudication, ruling for the most part in Palmer Charter's favor and directing the Department to distribute to Palmer Charter approximately $1.25 million of the total funds withheld. Following oral argument on February 15, 2012, we affirmed.
The Department advances a limited interpretation of the Secretary's power/duty under Section 1725-A(a)(5) in this case that simply cannot be reconciled with its handling of the Palmer Charter dispute. I recognize that an agency is permitted to change its interpreta*725tion of a statute. See Pa. Sch. Bds. Ass’n, Inc. v. Pub. Sch. Emps. Ret. Bd., 580 Pa. 610, 863 A.2d 432 (2004). Indeed, I would encourage an agency to do so where it determines that the prior determination was erroneous. But here, it appears that the Department has simultaneously advanced two inconsistent interpretations of the same statutory provision in separate, pending matters before the Secretary and then before this Court on appeal, without acknowledgment or explanation. That is troubling. Cf. Bairinger v. State Emps. Ret. Bd., 987 A.2d 163, 166 (Pa.Cmwlth.2009) ("While administrative agencies are not bound by prior precedent, they must render consistent decisions and should either follow, distinguish, or overrule their own precedent.”). For the reasons explained above, I believe that the Secretary’s handling of the Palmer Charter case is consistent with the General Assembly's intent, as set forth in Section 1725-A(a)(5), (6) of the Law and is the interpretation that should guide disposition of this matter.

. Because I would grant the relief requested in Count I, I would deny the Charter School's application for summary relief on the remaining counts. Granting the mandamus relief adequately restores the parties to the appropriate procedural posture under the Law. The Charter School is entitled to nothing more and nothing less in the context of this original jurisdiction proceeding. See GTECH Corp. v. Commonwealth, Dep’t of Revenue, 965 A.2d 1276 (Pa.Cmwlth.2009) (en banc) (recognizing original jurisdiction over claim that agency refused to afford administrative remedy).

. The District has raised several defenses to the Charter School’s claims, including, inter alia, the timeliness of the Charter School's underfunding claims dating back to as far as the 1997-98 school year. An adjudicative process before the Department is the appropriate place to decide the merit of all of the District's defenses in the first instance. I also agree with the majority that the Department must address the issues of bias and conflict of interest per our decision in Chester I prior to addressing the merits of this case. An impartial hearing, before an adjudicator that is not pre-disposed to favor one side (the District) over the other (the Charter School), is vital.