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Board hears continuing pressure on costs for homebound, 1-on-1 and contracted behavioral services
Summary
Board members and staff discussed reliance on contracted homebound instruction and one-on-one supports, trade-offs of moving services in-house, and staffing and substitute challenges that complicate insourcing.
District officials and board members discussed the cost and staffing trade-offs involved in contracted special-education services, including homebound instruction, one-on-one supports and applied-behavioral services.
Board members noted the district has contracted for homebound instruction and one-on-one supports in part because staff uptake is inconsistent. Presenters said the district has taken steps to expand in-house capacity'for example, training existing staff as registered behavioral technicians (RBTs) and increasing hourly pay for educational assistants'but that in-house staffing creates supervision and substitute-coverage challenges.
Administrators said one barrier to full insourcing is the need to ensure coverage when staff with one-on-one assignments call out; substitutes are limited, and pulling staff from other students can create cascading coverage problems. The board discussed whether shared services with neighboring districts or pooled staffing models could reduce costs, but trustees noted many districts are facing the same contractor-cost pressures and that renegotiating vendor rates is difficult when multiple districts compete for the same vendors.
Separately, the board voted to approve multiple resolutions related to special-education placements, homebound instruction contracts and one-on-one support arrangements; those routine approvals were included in the meeting's consent motions. Board members said they will continue to examine whether a financial case exists for increasing in-house services and what administrative costs would be required to supervise expanded internal staffing.
Ending: The board asked staff to continue evaluating contracting alternatives, to track total cost of outsourced services and to report options for potential shared-service arrangements or phased insourcing.
