School Budget: Special Education and Health Services

On Thursday, Jan. 19, in a School Committee meeting in the Superintendent’s Conference Room at Reading High, Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Doherty, Finance Director Mary DeLai and Director of Student Services Alison Elmer presented the remaining portions of the proposed School Department budget for fiscal year 2013, including the special education, school and town facilities and other cost centers.

DeLai also gave the committee an update on the FY12 budget.

Here we will take a look at the special education and health services cost centers, with the rest to follow tomorrow morning.

Special Education

The special education cost center comprises roughly 25 percent of the total budget, and funds all salaries and expenses required to provide special education and related services to children in Reading. This item has been level funded for the past three years.

For FY13, the recommended budget includes a 3 percent increase over the previous year, from $9,186,325 to $9,458,989.

Here are the breakdowns, according to materials distributed by the School Department:

• Professional salaries will rise 16.8 percent, from $3,501,553 to $4,091,476.
• Clerical salaries jump 0.7 percent, to $75,998 from $75,464.
• Other salaries will drop by 1.2 percent, from $1,674,922 to $1,654,172.
• Contract services are slated to drop 6.7 percent, from $1,017,300 to $1,085,000.
• Supplies and materials expenditure will decrease by 14.4 percent.
• Other expenses—such as software licensing and administrative expenses—will drop by 12.5 percent for FY13.

Salaries funded from the special education budget include the Director of Student Services and the Director of RISE preschool. The special education budget also funds the salaries of the special education teachers, learning center teachers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other related service providers. 

Other personnel expenses include staffing for the extended year program, special education paraeducators, and 2.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) clerical staff. The proposed budget includes the addition of 1.5 FTE social workers, 0.4 FTE elementary DLC  program teacher, 0.2 FTE MS speech therapy support, 2.0 FTE paraeducator support and 1.0 FTE district-wide evaluator.

The special education expense budget continues to be dominated by funding tuition and transportation to out-of-district schools.

During the last year, there have been seven new out-of-district placements, representing a 14 percent increase.

There are currently eight students in high school who will require out-of-district placement if a therapeutic support program is unable to be created in-district. Despite efforts to keep students in-district and provide high quality programs, there remain 60 students in out-of-district placements. By creating new programs in-district and enhancing our already existing programs, the School Department hopes to bring a number of these students back from their out-of-district placements.

One of the primary challenges faced by officials for FY13 is the dramatic decline in special education reimbursement and grant funding, referred to as “Circuit Breaker.” The "Circuit Breaker" Grant is intended to reimburse districts for high special education costs defined as those in excess of three times the state average per pupil expense for special education or approximately $38,000. For every dollar above the threshold, the state has historically reimbursed districts at the rate of 75 percent. In FY13, the rate will be 65 percent, up from the 40 percent rate last year.

The most recent MassBudget Study points out that the foundation budget underfunds special education’s actual cost by $1 billion, in their quest to bring special education corrections to the foundation budget and to fully fund “Circuit Breaker.”

Health Services

The Health Services budget funds the salaries and expense for servicing the medical needs of the district’s student population. Ninety-six percent of the budget funds the salaries of the eight nurses and the Director of Nurses. Currently, each building has at least one full-time nurse. Overall, the Health Services budget is projected to increase 2.9 percent or $14,581. Most of that increase is attributable to the increase in professional salaries

Here’s the breakdown for this cost center:

• Salaries will rise by 2.7 percent, from $493,027 to $506,123.
• Contract Services increase by 12.7 percent, from $7,859 to $8,859.
• Supplies and materials will jump by $500, from $7,100 to $7,600. An increase of 7 percent.
• Other expenses will decrease slightly, by 0.6 percent from $2,315 to $2,300.

For more details, see the attached PDF file for the complete presentation.