Costs of special education programs continue to grow

Editor's note: This is the third in a four-part series on special education in southeast Iowa

School districts across southeast Iowa have seen increases in spending for special education. About a quarter of Mt. Pleasant Community School District and Washington Community School District's yearly budget goes to providing services to students in their special education program.

While districts also receive reimbursements from Medicaid for students with health needs, as well as federal funding through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, most funding for students with special needs come directly from the state. Each child who has been deemed by the Area Education Agency (AEA), a statewide entity that helps provide special education resources to districts across Iowa, to need special education are given a certain 'weight.”

A student can receive a 1.72, 2.21 or 3.74 weighting. The higher the weighting, the more services a student needs, which correlates with the amount of funding a district receives. If a student is weighted at 1.72, then the district receives .72 more funding for that specific student, calculated by the district's cost per pupil.

Ed Chabal, the director of business and finance for Mt. Pleasant, explained that nearly all school districts in Iowa run a deficit in spending when it comes to special education.

'Just estimating, I'd say 90 percent of Iowa school districts have a deficit. There are some that will run a surplus, but that's very unusual,” Chabal said.

In the previous school year, Mt. Pleasant Community School District had a deficit of 511,027 in special education expenditures. Of the $4.3 million the district spent on special education, $3.3 million was provided by the state through the weighting system.

Similarly Jeff Dieleman, the business manager for Washington Community School District noted that the district is spent $4.8 million of their $20 million budget on special education last year, and ran a $800,000 deficit. For most districts, special education is its most expensive program.

'This past year, we had some more higher needs kids, which was why the deficit was higher … it's difficult to estimate your balance because a child with greater needs may move into your district tomorrow and that can throw you off,” Dieleman said.

'We've run at a deficit every single year except for one, and I've been here 11 years,” the business manager added.

Across a district, the majority of funding goes to paying for staff, which is reflected and further amplified in special education programs.

'A lot of our high needs kids need a person with them all the time, so it's expensive to pay a person to be with one student the whole day. Staff is definitely the majority of our expenses,” Dieleman explained.

Chabal similarly pointed out that that 70 to 80 percent of special education funding goes to personnel cost in his district, which has grown in the past several years. Chabal noted that in just the last decade, the district, which currently serves 1,922 students and whose enrollment numbers have dropped by over 200 in the same amount of time, has increased the amount of paraeducators it employs. The director of business noted that the district has gone from about 50 to 60 paraeducators to 90.

The growth in personnel come as a result of not only more special education students but students with higher needs. As more students with more severe needs are identified, each district is required by law to provide the necessary services.

'In 2012, we had 222 kids in special ed and in 2019 we had 232. So it's grown a little bit in the last five years,” Dieleman noted. The financial director also stated that in 2012, the district spent $3.2 million of an approximately $17 million budget, which means expenditures for special education have grown from being one-fifth of the district's budget to one-fourth.

'They're identifying needs at a younger age and there are just more kids with IEPs now,” the Washington business manager added, a trend Chabal also noted.

Because special education costs have gone up, Dieleman said it is very common for higher needs kids living in smaller school districts, who may not have the resources to support those students, will open enroll into larger districts like Washington. And although it drives up costs for the larger districts, who have to pay for the student upfront before being reimbursed, Dieleman explained that he felt it was important for larger school districts to help take care of those students.

'There are some kids that a smaller district would struggle to take care of properly, so I understand why they're open-enrolling into Washington because we have the resources,” he said.

Ultimately, both financial directors pointed to a change in weighting as the main way in which the state could better support districts and special education programs. While demographics of special education students have changed in both sheer numbers and level of needs, the weighting for funding has not grown proportionally.

Dieleman explained that the weightings are determined by state legislature and have not been adjusted since 2004.

'The weightings is where the state could help, increase the weightings for these levels so that we could get more funding. Our deficit is growing every year, it gets a little bit bigger. So the weightings are not keeping up with the needs of the kids. That's really the only avenue the state would have to help,” Dieleman said.

'Essentially it does get passed back to the taxpayers, otherwise we just sort of absorb those costs,” Chabal said.

'If we can't recover those costs any other way and we decide not to levy property taxes for it, unfortunately, some other program may be hurt. Other students in the district may not have the opportunity to take advantage of, like starting a new program or even continuing existing programs, if this continues to grow. It's not just us. It's statewide, it's nationwide,” Chabal commented on the scope of the issue and how it can impact other students in the district. Chabal, who is part of the International Association of School Business Officials, notes that many financial directors would like to see increase in both federal and state funding.

'There has been some discussion before about changing those three different levels of weighting, so you would pick up additional dollars from the state, but that would be money coming out of the state budget. They would have to make sure that it's there and that's why it hasn't been too successful to this point,” Chabal added.