STRATTANVILLE, Pa. (EYT) — While six of the seven Clarion County School Districts are seeing an increase in funding from the Commonwealth, Clarion-Limestone will take a nearly one percent cut in funding.

According to District Business Manager Stephanie Smith, one reason for this decrease, which comes in at 0.9 percent or nearly $50,000.00, is because the median household income in the district increased by $6,709.00.

“Clarion-Limestone Area School District did see a significant decrease in Basic Ed Funding,” Smith said in an e-mail to exploreClarion.com. “This was mainly due to the significant increase in our median household income for our district.”

Smith said she contacted the Pennsylvania Department of Education to discuss the funding, but the district doesn’t have control over the Commonwealth’s calculation.

“It depends on the sample size for that year for the census.”

According to Smith, this calculation is one of the reasons that the school districts encourage local residents to fill out census forms during each round of the census.

“We do ask that the residents do fill this information out when it is sent in order to have a true picture of our district’s income.”

Smith noted the district also saw a decrease in the average daily attendance at the schools.

“Our funding is based on the attendance of students, not just enrollment. The school district did invest in a new student information system.

“We feel one benefit to this system is to help analyze where we are seeing issues with attendance.”