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Commission examines rising special-education costs, transportation vendor rates and proposed cap changes
Summary
Lawmakers and DOE staff reviewed special-education cost drivers — transportation, contracted services, rate-setting and data limitations — and considered a proposed bill (LSR) that would lower the catastrophic-aid threshold; DOE modeled current-year effects and estimated a roughly $4 million shift from state to local under a $60,000 local-first scenario for existing submitted students.
Members of the commission to study special-education costs spent the meeting parsing the major cost drivers district leaders say are increasing and reviewed modeling of a proposed change to catastrophic-aid thresholds.
DOE staff described the DOE 25 supplemental reporting that captures special-education spending by wages, benefits, contracted services, supplies/equipment and transportation and said district-level DOE 25 reports are publicly available. The department acknowledged it has not completed an exhaustive district-by-district analysis for the commission but said it can provide the data upon request.
Several members and SAU administrators emphasized transportation and contracted-service costs as growing line items. DOE and district representatives shared invoice examples…
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