Walworth County board adopts new tuition-billing method, raises space-reservation threshold to 80% and phases in increases

The Walworth County Children with Disabilities Education Board voted July 16 to adopt a revised tuition-billing method for Lakeland School and to set classroom capacity planning at 80 percent to reserve space for partner districts and tuition placements. The board approved a phased, three-year implementation for existing tuition students; new tuition students will be billed at the full revised rate immediately.

Board action and context The board, which met July 16, approved the methodology after staff described changes intended to capture previously unbilled costs and to make billing more equitable across students. The new approach uses a full-time-equivalent (FTE) calculation for each student and groups staffing costs by department rather than assigning a single teacher or therapist cost to each student.

The change was prompted by a partner district request and a staff review with county finance. Staff said the previous method underbilled part-time students because the per-student costs were divided by…