$36 Million for Special Education in Jeopardy (SC)

June 27, 2011

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South Carolina education leaders are gearing up for a fight with their
federal counterparts about whether the state should lose $36 million for
special education students next year.

Federal officials have said the state could lose a total of $111.5 million
for students with disabilities because the state made budget cuts equal to that
amount during the past few years without the U.S. Department of Education’s
approval.

The state must either restore that money to districts by Thursday or lose it
going forward.

The state has cobbled together $75 million of the $111.5 million through an
unexpected increase in state revenue and lesser-than-e xpected bus fuel costs.

It plans to appeal the mandate to give an additional $36 million to
districts because it doesn’t believe federal officials’ interpretation of what
happened in the past is correct, said Jay Ragley, the state Education
Department’s deputy superintendent for legislative and public affairs.

“If we’re not successful, we will go to court,” he said. “We
will be fighting that $36 million cut for as long as we can and until we’ve
exhausted all of our remedies.”

The state’s predicament is confusing and complicated, spanning multiple
fiscal years and uncharted territory around providing waivers to states on
spending for students with disabilities.

The heart of the problem is the state’s failure to invest a certain amount
of money into its special education programs to meet federal requirements.
Federal law requires states to at least maintain their level of special
education spending from year to year unless they receive permission from the
U.S. Department of Education to invest less.

If a state fails to do this, it is at risk to lose money.

South Carolina has cut its special education spending in 2008-09, 2009-10
and 2010-11 without the go-ahead from the federal government. Federal officials
examined the state’s overall revenues and expenditures for those years and came
up with what the state needed to put back into special education:

–$75.3 million came from the 2010-11 school year.

–$36.2 million from the 2009-10 school year.

The state’s proposed budget includes two new requirements that should
prevent the situation from happening again — the state Department of Education
is required to let the General Assembl y know what the federal requirement is
for investing in special education students, and if there is a cut, the
department has pledged to do all it can to prevent cutting special education.

Going forward, the state Budget and Control Board and the Office of State
Budget must sign off on the proposal to return $75 million to special education
students. If that happens, the money would be distributed statewide to
districts using the same formula to allocate special education dollars in
2010-11.

Districts either could use the money to pay for
any outstanding invoices for the current year or carry the money forward for
special education services for 2011-12.