Marysville board outlines plan to assume preschool services after UCBDD funding shortfall

Marysville Exempted Village Board of Education members met in a special work session April 2 to review a proposal for the district to assume preschool services now provided at the Harold Lewis Center after the Union County Board of Developmental Disabilities (UCBDD) notified area districts it cannot continue to fund the program.

District staff said the change stems from recent increases in Medicaid-funded service rates that UCBDD must cover; those higher rates were not included in some prior levy projections. "They made those projections without increasing Medicaid costs," a district staff member, Kara (district staff member), said during the meeting. Kara told the board that the result is insufficient county-level funding to sustain preschool services for multiple districts and that Marysville would be affected because roughly 90% of the students currently served at Harold Lewis are Marysville students.

Why it matters: the district estimates preschool operations will add roughly $3 million in recurring costs; after projected state and tuition revenue, Marysville staff estimated a remaining general-fund shortfall of about $2,575,000 that the district would need to fill. Todd (district staff member) said state funding for the program currently shows up in the district's foundation settlements and that, under the proposed arrangement, those dollars would remain with the district rather than being deducted and routed to UCBDD. "That would show up in our . . . state foundation funding,"…