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August 31, 2004

School board bills feds for unfunded IDEA costs

No, you didn't read that headline wrong. And no, it isn't a joke. As BoardBuzz readers know, Congress committed 28 years ago to pay 40 percent of the costs of special education mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Today, its contribution is approaching... 20 percent.

Underfunded local school districts consequently end up in role of financial gatekeeper when trying to satisfy parents of students with disabilities, who understandably want the best for their children. The dissatisfied parents, armed with legal rights under IDEA, frequently bring lawsuits, driving costs up even higher. Check out this article from the Christian Science Monitor. Meanwhile, Congress makes some noise, whichever party is out of power at the time accuses the other of shortchanging 6.5 million children, and IDEA funding is increased here and there. But the one constant is that Congress never comes close to fulfilling its commitment.

So the Barrington (N.H.) School Board recently sent a bill to the U.S. Department of Education for $2 million for "services rendered." The board also sent a sharp letter to its two U.S. senators about Congress' decades long failure to fully fund special education. From NSBA's Legal Clips, here's a summary of a news article in Foster's Daily Democrat, along with links to both the billing statement and the letter. The gutsy move also generated TV coverage.

Barrington Superintendent Michael Morgan tells BoardBuzz that the board took the same step two years ago. They never received a response from the department... let alone the money. And they don't expect a response this year, either, although their elected officials are responding with the usual lame lines about "We've increased funding by _____." As we will continue to point out, these increases are welcome, necessary, and commendable, but the convenient rhetoric completely misses the point about the remaining unfunded gap.

"Year after year, after year, local taxpayers are forced to compensate for the inadequacies of Congressional funding," the school board wrote. "Year after year, politicians make promises and still do not properly fund these mandated services." Clearly this is one school board and one superintendent who fully understand that Congress is not being "frugal" when it fails live up to its own funding commitments for its own education mandates. It is not being "fiscally conservative." And it's not "looking out for taxpayers." Quite the contrary. It's just passing along the Federal Education Tax to the local level.

The Senate recently failed to make federal funding of IDEA mandatory. And we'll have to see whether Congress even shows any inclination to at least get the job done on reauthorizing IDEA and fixing some of the very problems that drive up local costs in the first place.

Barrington's unique way of registering local dissatisfaction with Congressional failure strikes us as in the best cantankerous New England (especially New Hampshire) tradition. BoardBuzz thinks it's an IDEA worth spreading to other communities.

A lot of other communities.

Posted August 31, 2004 12:00 AM