Brookline Schools Grapple with $1M Shortfall Due to Special Ed Funding

December 8, 2009

School officials are working to close a $1 million budget gap they said is driven by rising expenses in special education costs and reductions in the state aid meant to help control those expenses.

"We had a cut in reimbursements, and an increase in out-of-district placements at the same time," said School Committee Vice Chairwoman Rebecca Stone.

State law requires schools to meet the needs of students requiring special ed services, and if a district can’t do that, a district is responsible for connecting those kids to those needed programs.

In Brookline, the district received a 73 percent state reimbursement for the costs in recent years. But beginning with state budget cuts that began last year, the reimbursement has fallen to around 40 percent, said Stone.

And there is no guarantee what the reimbursement will look like in fiscal 2011.

"That’s an open question. That is an area they’ve cut back in the past," said Stone, though it’s unclear whether further cuts in that area could occur.

Meanwhile, the district faces an increasing demand for out-of-district placements.
Brookline’s deputy superintendent for administration and finance, Peter Rowe, said the district placed 85 students in outside special ed programs this fiscal year.

That’s 10 students more than this point last year, he said.

At the same time, the district’s special ed reimbursement was cut by $737,000 this year, contributing to this year’s budget shortfall, he said.

He said school leaders are working to finalize a plan to balance this year’s budget sometime this week. In the interim, they’ve frozen some non-salary accounts and taken other cost-saving steps, he said.

"We haven’t finalized the plan," said Rowe.

According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, school districts across Massachusetts place more than 10,000 students in out-of-district placements, about 6 percent of the entire population of students with disabilities. Districts also spend about 6 percent of their operating budgets on these placements.

On average, placing a student in a private day program is just under $51,000 per year, while a public program could cost under $32,000 per year, according to the state education department.

Brookline’s Stone said that while the state avoided direct cuts to education funding, school districts must still make up the difference when costs for special ed expenses go up.
And those costs depend largely on whether families with children who have specific needs move into the district. Stone said that the state never reimbursed the transportation costs associated with out-of-district placements – a cost that totals about $1 million for Brookline in this fiscal year.

"It can shift our revenue quite dramatically with a couple of new cases," said Stone.