Pennsylvania

Energy. Environment. Economy.

Stateline: PA Schools Fill Budget Cuts With Drilling Money

August 30, 2011 | 12:00 PM
By Scott Detrow

Scott Detrow / StateIm­pact Pennsylvania

A Tioga County well pad

State­line takes a look at how some school dis­tricts are fill­ing bud­get gaps by leas­ing out land for nat­ural gas drilling:

In late July, the Black­hawk School Dis­trict, 40 miles north­west of Pitts­burgh, joined a hand­ful of other school dis­tricts in Penn­syl­va­nia look­ing to cash in on the state’s nat­ural gas boom.

In a vote of seven-to-one, the school board agreed to lease 160 acres of the district’s land to Chesa­peake Energy, the largest holder of min­eral rights in the Mar­cel­lus Shale region, which lies under­neath Penn­syl­va­nia and neigh­bor­ing states. At $2,000 per acre, the lease terms grant the dis­trict more than $300,000 upfront. If Chesa­peake suc­cess­fully extracts gas from below the district’s prop­erty, the schools would earn an addi­tional 15 per­cent roy­alty on the profits.

This year’s state bud­get cut nearly $1 bil­lion in basic edu­ca­tion spend­ing. The bulk of the decrease came from dis­ap­pear­ing fed­eral stim­u­lus money, which accounted for $600 mil­lion in 2010–2011 school dis­trict funding.

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Comments

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bob-Schmetzer/100001612337184 Bob Schmet­zer

    After view­ing the Repub­li­can plat­form as water­boys for a gas & oil indus­try and a Demo­c­rat party with their heads in the sand and silent, I am sick­ened by the per­sonel and prop­erty vio­la­tions that are occur­ring coun­try­wide. The media cares more to take a full page add or a spot on TV , rather than report­ing the tragedies. The courts are com­plicint to gag orders and no state agency has a valid track of water & air pol­lu­tion for ref­er­ence. Money buys priv­iledge. State oil and gas laws pre-empts local gov­ern­ment pro­tec­tion of their com­mu­ni­ties. It forces local elected offi­cials to vio­late their duty to pro­tect the health , safety, and wel­fare of their com­mu­ni­ties. State elected offi­cials swore an oath to obey and to defend the con­sti­tu­tion. Sec, 1 Art. 27 of the PA Con­sti­tu­tion is being vio­lated. Also the US Con­sti­tu­tion Art 10.We the peo­ple have lost con­trol to gov­ern our­selves, to Cor­po­ra­tions. Who can be con­trolled by for­eign gov­ern­ments through own­er­ship. There is enough blame to go around. Now is the time for change, Real change that makes sense and is real­is­tic. Lets get back to basics.

    • Anony­mous

      Hey Bob: Sign up on Frack Track.org and help us help the cit­i­zens of this Com­mon­wealth anthol­o­gize their experiences.

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