Santee Fully Funds Mental Health Services In the Face of Cuts (CA)

January 6, 2011

At Tuesday’s meeting the Santee School Board passed a resolution to fully fund mental-health services for students with disabilities, though state funding for the program was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October.

Without the state’s $133 million in funding, the cost of the federally-mandated programs will have to be covered by Santee School District itself.

Santee now joins two other East County school districts, La Mesa-Spring Valley and Lemon Grove, in ensuring the continuation of the programs and demanding help from the state.

The Santee School District currently has eight students which receive services funded by the program.??

The men tal-health programs fall under Assembly Bill 3632, which guarantees mental health assessments, participation and recommendation to an IEP Team, out-of-state residential placement, participation in due process hearings related to mental health services, and inter-agency contract related duties.

Unless the state reverses its decision to cut funding or a solution is reached in court (lawsuits are in the works), it looks like the Santee School District will have to redistribute $65,000 in their budget to meet the programs needs, according to a ?Union Tribune report?.

Increased federal funding may be another option. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has committed to releasing $76 million in federal funding to maintain services.  Although O’Connell’s office was concerned that they would not be able to allocate federal funding due to cuts made by the state, they are "proceeding with business as usual," said California Department of Education (CDE) Director of Communications Hilary McLean.

"Every California student deserves an education that gives them the opportunity to meet their full potential," O’Connell said. " Gov. Schwarzenegger’s action to eliminate funding for severely disabled students’ mental health services is cruel to vulnerable children and is yet another slap in the face to public schools that have been underfunded by $21 billion over the last three budget years."

O’Connell said he refuses to let Schwarzenegger’s action prevent severely disabled students from getting the health care they need from qualified providers.

"I have directed the CDE to disburse federal funds allocated for this purpose in the same manner as it has for the last six years so that districts can continue to contract with the most appropriate providers and ensure continuity to help these vulnerable students," he said.

The $76 million will help ensure mental health services that are included within a students’ individualized education program (IEP), are appropriately provided during the current fiscal year by county mental health agencies consistent with current statute. In keeping with how funds have been dispersed in the past, the CDE will allocate federal funds to each county office of education to contract with the appropriate mental health agency to provide specified mental health services.

Although San Diego County is slated to receive just over $4 million, it spends approximately $13 million annually to serve students under the AB 3632 program.  A total of $8 million has previously been provided by state and federal funding, while $5 million comes from Medi-Cal—the state public health insurance program which provides health care services for low-income families.?

"Gov. Schwarzenegger discriminated against this segment of our citizens who are specifically protected by the referenced statute and by laws against disability discrimination," local attorney Mattheus Stephens? said. "It is regrettable that he picked the most vulnerable of our citizens to victimize in the budget morass."