Rina Petit

Instead of considering HB121 which would establish local school district special education parent advisory councils, how about this legislative committee actually develop a special education reimbursement process that reimburses local school districts for a SUBSTANTIAL amount of special education costs? There was a $16.4 million shortfall in the amount the state budgeted to reimburse local school districts last November. The state only covered about 67.5 percent of the funding it was supposed to give to districts! And that funding is AFTER a crazy formula is applied that only considers costs that exceed 3-1/2 times the estimated state average costs per pupil which is then reimbursed in the following year!