School officials are worried that the state is reneging on a promise to fund its share of school construction projects, which could cost school districts — and local taxpayers — millions of dollars in unplanned expenditures in the coming years.

Buried within Gov. Tom Corbett's 2012-13 budget proposal is a provision calling for a one-year moratorium on accepting new applications for state reimbursements for school construction and renovation projects.

Corbett earmarked $296 million next year for the reimbursements — the same as this year — but his budget indicates there are more projects awaiting approval than available funding.

As a result, current projects "in the pipeline" will be funded "to the extent funds are available," according to the state Department of Education.

What that means is unclear, but school officials are concerned it will delay or eliminate reimbursements for projects under construction or well into the planning stages.

Adding to their financial worries, some districts are already experiencing backlogs of a year or more in payments of state reimbursements for projects that are finished or nearing completion.

School District of Lancaster, for example, has yet to receive $1.7 million in reimbursements for construction bond payments dating as far back as 2007 for projects at Wharton, Ross, Washington and Lafayette elementary schools, said Matt Przywara, the district's chief financial officer.

Now Przywara is concerned that a proposed new construction project — Martin Elementary School — won't get the $4.5 million in funding the district was counting on from the state.

"It's going to kill our debt service," he said of that prospect. "We're going to be in a crunch in two years."

For decades, the state has been paying a percentage of the cost of school construction based on the type of project and makeup of the school district. Percentages range from about 5 percent to 60 percent, with the larger shares going to less wealthy districts.

The money is doled out annually as districts pay off their construction bonds.

If the state were to curtail the payments, Penn Manor School District would lose $2.5 million in state funds for a new Hambright Elementary School, superintendent Michael Leichliter said.

That $18.6 million project is scheduled to go out to bid next year, and the district has begun the complex reimbursement application process known as PlanCon.

Like other local school officials, Leichliter is confused about whether his project is considered "in the pipeline" and thus eligible for reimbursements or subject to the moratorium.

Tim Eller, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said projects that have reached the "PlanCon H" approval stage are considered "in the pipeline." At that stage, a project has been put out to bid and is relatively far along in a process that begins at "PlanCon A" and usually ends with "PlanCon K."

That could leave Hambright and Martin, as well as several other school projects proposed by Lancaster County districts, out in the cold.

Sen, Lloyd Smucker of West Lampeter Township said it's not clear what level of funding would be provided for projects that are not "in the pipeline."

Asked if it's possible the funding would be cut completely, Smucker said that "would not be high on the list of probabilities."

It's more likely, he said, that reimbursements would be delayed until funding catches up with the projects on the approval list. According to the Department of Education, 230 projects on the PlanCon list "have not been included in funding estimates to date."

Another possibility, Smucker said, is that more money may be allocated to the reimbursement pool during negotiations on the 2012-13 state budget, which must be approved by the Legislature by June 30.

Smucker, a member of the Senate Education committee, said the problem stems from a lack of oversight of the PlanCon process in previous years. Projects were placed into the "queue" for approvals without regard to whether there was enough money available to pay for them, he said.

Corbett's budget attempts to address that problem, Smucker said.

But school officials said they should have been told up front, before they committed time and resources to their projects, that there was no guarantee of state funding.

"It is unfair to change the rules in the middle of the game," said Brenda Becker, superintendent of Hempfield School District, which could lose out on as much as $160,000 per year in construction reimbursements if funding is cut.

The potential loss of revenue comes as Hempfield grapples with a projected $4.4 million budget deficit next year.

Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, blames the state for underfunding the program.

"Rather than increasing appropriations, which is what should have happened, they've cut the appropriation and they've built up this backlog," he said.

According to PASBO, the state boosted the school construction reimbursement fund by more than $30 million from 2006-07 to 2009-10, but cut funding the next two years.

Now it's up to school districts to figure out how to make up for the potential lost revenue, he said.

"Debt is debt, and it's not like they can say we're not going to pay it because we didn't get our reimbursement," he said.

bwallace@lnpnews.com