CSBA wins key ruling in special ed mandates
LEA reimbursements could top $1 billion
Published: February 26, 2013
After 20 years of legal wrangling, the Commission on State Mandates has unanimously agreed to adopt a reimbursement formula designed by CSBA’s Education Legal Alliance that could mean more than $1 billion in long-overdue payments to school districts and county offices of education to cover the costs of preparing Behavioral Intervention Plans for certain special education students.
Under terms of the standardized formula for reimbursement adopted by the commission at its Jan. 25 meeting, local educational agencies would be entitled to recover a flat payment of $10.64 per ADA for every school year between 1993-94 and 2010-11 for the costs of preparing and administering these intervention plans as required by state law.
The commission agreed that instead of mandating that LEAs provide records of actual costs, the per-student payment was reasonable based on data generated by a 2006-07 CSBA survey that documented what it cost to design intervention plans for students in 21 special education local plan areas, the regional coalitions of LEAs that oversee education for students with special needs. The commission is scheduled to finalize the new reimbursement formula at its April 19 meeting.
“Unfunded mandates have taken their toll on the state’s public education system. The commission’s decision affirms the need for the state to adequately reimburse LEAs for mandates. Without question, the commission’s decision is a substantial victory for public education,” said CSBA President Cindy Marks.
The state had urged the commission to require LEAs to provide documentation of the “actual costs” of complying with the BIP mandate—which would mean school agencies would have to dig up financial records dating back two decades.
“We just took a heavy load off districts,” said CSBA General Counsel Keith Bray, director of the Alliance.
Bray praised the “tenacity” of the Butte and San Joaquin county offices of education and the San Diego Unified School District, the claimants in the Alliance action that filed their first test claims in 1994. “To go through all this to get to a decision that’s right for the special education, special-needs children of the state is a huge testament,” he said.
Attorney Diana McDonough of the law firm of Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost, retained by the Alliance to represent the claimants before the commission, said she was extremely gratified the commissioners unanimously agreed that the reimbursement formula was sound. But she cautioned that the Legislature and governor must still allocate funds to pay these mandate reimbursements. “While we are relishing this wonderful victory, we have to say that what this amounts to is a sort of certified IOU,” McDonough said.
Other issues also remain. The Alliance was forced to go to court last year to challenge language in the 2011-12 state budget and several trailer bills that attempt to specifically exclude the costs of preparing intervention plans from the list of services for which LEAs are entitled to claim reimbursement. The suit is awaiting a hearing in Alameda County Superior Court. Attorney Deborah Caplan of the law firm of Olson, Hagel and Fishburn, who is representing the Alliance in this lawsuit, said she is hopeful that the court will agree that the state’s machinations are unconstitutional.
“We say it violates the requirement that the state must reimburse school districts and local governments for the costs of providing the services it mandates,” Caplan said.