Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit #21 (CLIU), located in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, is one of twenty nine Intermediate Unit Educational Service Agencies created by an Act of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania in 1971. CLIU provides services to 14 public school districts, non-public schools in its service region, and two vocational-technical schools (located in Carbon County and Lehigh County).
The agency has no taxing power. Its revenues come from federal grants, state grants, private grants, annual payments from each public school district in its region and charges to individuals for some services like driver's education.[1] The agency provides many services including specialized special education services and training for teachers to meet their state mandated continuing professional education with some offered online.[2] CLIU21 also operates a Librarians' Consortium for librarians from public libraries, private libraries, school libraries and higher education librarians.[3]
The CLIU serves as a coordinating agency for the purpose of bringing together several school districts, vocational schools, businesses, higher education and community groups.[4] The agency is governed by a board made up of one member from each participating public school districts. The members are appointed from the sending school board's elected members. Each local school board reviews and must approve the intermediate unit's annual budget in the spring of each school year.
The agency serves the following school districts:
It also services the following schools:
The CLIU Business Office is the fiscal agent for all revenue and expenditures made by the CLIU. The Business Office oversees approximately 50 different budgets totaling in excess of $80 million.[7] In addition, the Business Office is also responsible for all the external reporting to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the federal government for various programs and budgets of the CLIU.