Special Education Funding Talking Points

Every child deserves the best education possible.
Regular education should NOT be pitted against special education; the state has a moral obligation to be a partner with local districts for special education expenses.
State law requires the state to reimburse local school districts for 63% of special education costs - the Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates that the rate for the 1998-99 school year will be less than 35%. The governor's budget eliminates the state's 63% statutory reimbursement rate.
If the state returned to the reimbursement rate when revenue limits started (1993-94 -- 45%), the Madison school district would have an additional $4.5M in spending authority. If the state actually kept its statutory commitment of 63% reimbursement, the Madison school district would have over $11M in increased spending authority - enough to reduce class size in grades K-3, complete backlogged maintenance work, and maintain the district's computer system ($2M annual cost).
Handicapped aids (the state's categorical fund that finances special education) has been frozen at $275.5M since 1994-95 -- the governor's budget continues this freeze through 2000-01.
With revenue limits in place school districts must use resources from the regular education portion of the budget to fund state and federally mandated special education programs/services.
Special education costs for Madison have increased $10.1M since the inception of revenue limits - state aid has increased only $1.1M.
Bilingual education costs have increased $1.8M since the start of revenue limits - state aid for this mandated program has increased a mere $66,000.

2001-03 Biennial State Budget