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Special education advocate calls for more staff as caseloads rise
Summary
The state's Office of the Advocate for Special Education told the committee it handles hundreds of requests and needs at least five staffers to meet statutory duties, citing 30,000+ students with IEPs and roughly 300 annual inquiries; the office currently has two full-time staff and a high intake load.
Kristen Moncharmani, special education advocate, and Tim Lenahan briefed the committee on the office's workload and staffing needs. Moncharmani said the office was created recently and has statutory duties to provide case management, data tracking and legislative consultation related to students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).
Moncharmani told the committee the office receives 30 to 40 new requests for help each month and that staff triage roughly 300 inquiries annually. She said the office handles complex cases that have often "broken down" at the local level, including students out of school, hospitalized or placed in restrictive settings; she described situations in which students were absent from school for a year or more.
Moncharmani said the office currently operates with two staff (the advocate and one other) and requested funding to staff a total of five employees (the advocate, a permanent Lenahan-level position, and three additional case-management staff). She said the office's prioritized need for three more case managers would improve the office's ability to triage and resolve disputes, reduce reliance on formal dispute processes and provide statewide monitoring and training.
Committee members asked about the office's impact on costs and outcomes. Moncharmani said in some cases the office's interventions had enabled step-down plans, group instruction strategies and transition planning that both benefit students and may be more cost-effective than restrictive placements. She said some outcomes had required due-process hearings.
Moncharmani described unresolved capacity constraints: "We cannot do the statutory mandate, which has us data tracking, doing case management, and resolution across the entire state of IEPs, legislative consultation, and training pieces. We can't do that with 2 people across the entire state." She asked the committee to consider prioritized needs for staffing, while acknowledging the fiscal constraints in the governor's budget.
Members pressed specifics on caseload. Moncharmani said each of the two staff can handle roughly 30 to 40 active cases per year and that intake inquiries approach 300 annually; many of those are unresolved, intensive cases that require multiple meetings and ongoing management.
Moncharmani asked for another appearance to follow up and provide additional documentation on staffing needs and outcomes.
