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Task force approves special education report urging full excess-cost funding, more tuition transparency
Summary
The Connecticut Special Education Task Force voted to approve a draft report that calls for changes to the state's excess cost reimbursement system, new reporting on private/residential tuition rates, and other recommendations to reduce out-of-district placements and support in-district programming.
The Connecticut Special Education Task Force voted to approve a revised report that urges the state to fully fund excess cost (ECS) reimbursements, consider eliminating tiered reimbursement thresholds, and require the State Department of Education to collate tuition-rate information for private and regional programs and make it available to districts.
The panel’s vote to adopt the report as edited by staff came at the end of a lengthy meeting during which members debated the costs and mechanics of proposed changes. The motion to approve the report, described in the meeting as “the report as modified by Michelle Robbins,” passed by voice vote; members recorded “aye” and the chair declared the motion adopted. No roll-call tally was provided in the transcript.
The report highlights the decline in the share of excess costs covered by the state and calls attention to a shortfall that, according to discussion in the meeting, could leave districts reimbursed for a substantially smaller percentage of their excess costs in the current fiscal year. Task force members discussed preliminary figures ranging in the discussion from roughly $231 million to $261 million as points of reference for state reimbursements and funding gap estimates.
Members emphasized two financing options the report includes: (1) elimination of the tiered reimbursement system in favor of reimbursing districts for the full amount of excess special education costs once the statutory threshold is met, and (2) a separate proposal that would adjust the statutory threshold used to trigger reimbursement (the group discussed a differential of 4.5 times per-pupil expenditure for out-of-district placements and a lower multiple — discussed as 3 to 3.5 times — for in-district programs).
The report also recommends that the State Department of Education collect and make available to school districts information on tuition rates charged by approved private day and residential programs (APSEs and RESCs). Members were divided over whether that information should be fully public or shared only with districts; the final motion instructs the department to make the data available to districts (the report text retained language to “collate and make available to districts” rather than explicitly requiring public posting).
Task force members repeatedly framed the financing recommendations as tools to reduce out-of-district placements by helping districts develop and maintain local programs. The report notes that Connecticut’s published figures show a recent decline in out-of-district placements (from 6.8% to 5.88% across three reporting periods, as cited in the meeting); members said more up-to-date fiscal data is expected from the Office of Fiscal Analysis presentations to legislators.
The panel scheduled its report to be presented to the legislature’s special education committee, and members said staff would finalize editorial changes overnight. The meeting record shows the vote to approve the draft; the transcript does not list a recorded count of yea/nay/abstain votes.
