HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner on Tuesday called for a moratorium on new charter and cyber-charter schools, pending an overhaul of a funding system that he said has resulted in serious inequities in what taxpayers pay to finance these public school alternatives.

At a Capitol news conference, Wagner released a report based on a review of 18 charter schools and information from the state Department of Education.

He said the root of the problem is a state law that requires school districts to pay a charter-school tuition rate per pupil based on a district's own costs. That results in different districts paying different rates to the same charter school.

"It's got to be fixed and it's got to be fixed as soon as possible," Wagner said.

The Hazleton Area School District, for example, paid about $6,500 to send a student to a charter school in 2008-09, while the Jenkintown School District in Montgomery County paid more than $16,000 per student. For special-education students, the rates are much higher and the disparity much larger, according to Wagner's office.

Taxpayers paid $708 million — mostly from local property tax revenue — to educate about 73,000 students at 127 charter and cyber-charter schools in 2008-09. Adding to the bottom line is $228 million that the state paid out in reimbursements to the "sending" school districts for built-in expenses incurred even though some students have transferred to charter schools. Wagner called those payments a "premium" included in the law "to keep the school districts happy."

Wagner said state policy makers should establish a tuition rate based on the actual costs of instruction and require charter schools to reconcile their books annually, as school districts are required to do.

Gov. Ed Rendell said that tuition inequities are a problem and that he will review Wagner's report.