District special-education staff reported progress implementing recommendations from a recent audit and described a new initiative to bill Medicaid for eligible services.

Nut graf: The district contracted Constellations Behavioral Services to audit learning-center programs; staff are drafting program descriptions and entrance/exit criteria and are planning therapeutic-program audits and training for Medicaid billing to recover allowable service costs.

Assistant directors and Christina (Special Education lead) said the district is creating program descriptions, entrance and exit criteria, and staffing patterns for learning-center programs (preK–8) and will audit therapeutic learning centers spanning K–12 this spring. The district is also analyzing literacy staffing and instructional-assistant roles to determine whether reallocations or additional certified staff are needed.

On funding, staff said they have begun training related-service providers and office staff on a third-party Medicaid billing platform. They are digitizing family consent forms and informing parents that their permission is needed before claims can be submitted; staff said no projection of recovered revenue is yet available because parent consents are the first step.

Committee members welcomed the quick work after the audit and noted the relevance for the upcoming budget cycle. Assistant directors Derek Munyon and Priscilla Cruz were named as part of the team leading implementation with Christina; staff said more granular projections will appear in budget materials.