State board OKs special education funding reform

ROCKLAND – State Board of Education members gave the green light Wednesday to researchers examining a different way to pay for special education.

Board members said the funding plan being studied at the University of Maine and the University of Southern Maine would ensure that students with disabilities receive the same amount of resources regardless of where they live.

The drive to reform special education funding is part of a state initiative called Essential Programs and Services. State education officials are seeking to determine the resources needed so that every student can meet the state’s new Learning Results, which start taking effect in 2003. The standards spell out what public school students should know at various points in their K-12 education.

Walt Harris of the University of Maine and David Silvernail of the University of Southern Maine said their plan calls for reimbursing districts according to their total enrollment and average state expenditure rates.

Allocations would be offered up front as part of a block grant and would hinge on the idea that approximately 15 percent of students in kindergarten through grade 12 have special needs.

The current funding formula, in which the state reimburses special education costs based on what districts spent two years ago, is unfair, the researchers said in their report.

“Poor communities cannot afford to raise the funds needed for a two-year period, the state share has been eroding and the federal share is only 10 percent of the costs. It is also not adequate since there is no relation between costs and spending. Further it is not fiscally responsible in that there is no control over expenditures,” they said.

The board, which told the researchers to continue developing the funding model so that it could be presented to the legislature next session, emphasized nothing was etched in stone.

“This isn’t perfect, but it improves the discrepancies among local communities as to how they handle special needs kids,” said member Wes Bonney of Portland.

Chairman Jean Gulliver of Falmouth agreed, pointing out that the special education resources behind each child now vary widely across the state based on the philosophy of administrators and on what’s available in the district.

But the plan provides “a semblance of equity of resources to support each student,” she said.

The proposed funding model stipulates that districts addressing special education needs in general education classrooms be rewarded and that they have the flexibility to deal with unique local needs.

In their report, the researchers also recommended the special education funding formula be adjusted for poverty and for district size, that an appeals process be put into place to assist districts with high disability rates, and that a contingency fund be set up to support districts that incur unusually high costs for students with severe and multiple disabilities.