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Committee discusses possible audits of local school districts' special education coding; asks LBA to pull DOE ratios
Summary
Committee members debated auditing local school districts' special education coding and agreed to have LBA pull Department of Education (DOE) data on special-education enrollment and spending to identify outliers for possible audits.
Members of the Legislative Budget Assistant committee discussed potential future audit topics and focused substantial attention on special education at the local-school-district level. Lawmakers asked LBA staff to produce a statewide ranking of districts by special-education measures so the committee can select audit targets.
Committee members said existing state audits have not examined local districts in depth and argued that district-level coding and spending could explain volatile special-education costs cited during recent budget reviews. The committee discussed selecting a mix of high- and low-outlier districts for comparative audits to learn whether high percentages reflect overcoding or whether low percentages indicate under-identification.
Representative Weiler suggested a practical first step: "review the DOE 20 fives, which should show the amount of money spent on special ed and pick out the ones that have the highest percentage of special ed coding," and then write a joint letter from finance committee chairs asking for explanations from districts that are statistical outliers. Several members agreed that LBA should produce a statewide top-to-bottom list if it is administratively feasible.
LBA staff reminded the committee of a statutory limit on audits of non-state entities: "the audit division's authority to conduct post audits on non-state agencies shall be limited to five entities in a five-year period," the committee recorded from RSA 14:31-a. Staff also said the office has not previously audited local non-state districts and that auditing districts would be a new step for the LBA.
Committee members recommended that LBA bring back a short data set at the next meeting showing district-level ratios: total student enrollment, number of students coded for special education, and special-education spending; members suggested examining both high and low outliers and possibly asking the Department of Education to help select districts if needed. Members also noted an ongoing, separate large audit of the Department of Education's management of special education that may inform any district-level work.
The committee asked LBA staff to prepare the DOE-based ratios and an outlier list for the June meeting so the committee can decide whether to move forward with one or two district-level audits under the statutory limit.
