Special Ed Refunds Put Ridgefield District in a Bind
March 22, 2010
Ridgefield schools are facing a budget crunch after overcharging dozens of towns in Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties almost $3 million for sending students to the district’s special education program.
The district has returned all but $850,000 of the overcharge to the school districts in the past two years, but officials have struggled to find the money this year despite staff retirements and controls on expenses.
The special education debt compounds the problem created by massive cuts to state aid that took $1.7 million out of the district’s budget last week, Superintendent Robert Jack said.
"I would like to pay back every single thing that we owe," said Jack, who said he is still determined to settle the accounts this year. "It just [isn’t fun] starting every year in debt."
Districts with special education programs routinely over- and undercharge sending districts because officials must set tuition rates based on projected costs before the school year begins.
The state Department of Education approves the rates for each individual district based on actual costs more than two years later. Districts do not have to refund the money until the end of the third year – though the process was recently shortened to two years.
Starting in the 2005-06 school year, the tuition rates set by the Ridgefield district, which runs one of the largest special education programs in North Jersey with about 440 students, went up sharply.
The tuition Ridgefield charged for children with multiple disabilities, for example, went up from $32,086 in 2004-05 to $39,584 the next year, while the state certified rate actually dropped to about $27,000.
Ridgefield owed other districts $1.1 million after the state calculated the costs, district documents show.
A spokeswoman for the Education Department, Beth Auerswald, declined to comment on Ridgefield’s numbers. In an e-mail, Auerswald wrote that, "A district must budget for tuition adjustments."
Officials in other school districts say the overcharges are part of doing business and, in difficult fiscal times, they are glad to receive unexpected refunds.
"Sometimes you owe more money and sometimes you are owed money," said Fort Lee schools Business Administrator Cheryl Balletto, whose district received $200,000 in refunds from Ridgefield over two years.
Still, Ridgefield school board members and district officials have tried to understand why the tuition got so far out of line with state- approved rates.
School board member Philip Ganci also said that instability in the key positions — the district went through nine business administrators in nine years — meant that different officials were setting the fees every year.
Others note that the special education program provides about 40 percent of Ridgefield’s overall budget so there was an incentive to increase the tuition fees. The tuition supports special education but portions of the fees can also pay regular education expenses.
Robert Davis, who worked for the district as an interim business administrator from 2007 to 2009, said that staffing levels are so high for special education students that one student unexpectedly leaving the district can send costs skyrocketing.
For example, Ridgefield keeps a ratio of six autistic students to one teacher and two aides.
Davis added that the system is so complex and Ridgefield’s program is so large that the problems can’t be blamed on one person or factor.
"The budget goes through the process of being discussed at public meetings," Davis said. "It’s not that one person made a decision [to increase tuition]."
Still, Jack said the district reduced its tuition rates several years ago and hopes to avoid falling deeply in debt to other districts in the future.
"We are very, very cautious about our tuition rates," Jack said. "We want to make sure that what we charge is fair and justifiable."