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Janesville educators joined Rep. Judy Robson this week in announcing plans to introduce a bill that will help school districts pay for special education costs.
The legislation was developed in collaboration with the Janesville School District's Joint Legislative Committee.
"This bill addresses the conflict between laws that mandate school districts provide specific services for handicapped students and state law that limits the school districts' budgets," Robson said at a press conference at the Janesville School District offices.
Current law limits the amount of revenue a school district can receive from school aids and property taxes. At the same time, state and federal law require that school districts provide special education and related services for handicapped children ages 3 through 21 who reside in the district.
"School districts are mandated to fund special education, but there are no mandates when it comes to funding regular education," Robson said. "Thus, regular education programs suffer under state-imposed budget constraints. School boards are forced to build their budgets around handicapped education."
Robson's bill allows school districts to raise revenues to make up for the shortfall in state funding for special education. The bill creates an exemption to the revenue caps for the purpose of funding special education.
"Because the state is not meeting its obligation to fund 63% of categorical aids for special education, this bill allows school districts to raise the necessary funding through action of the school board," Robson said.
Janesville School District Administrator Tom Evert said state-mandated revenue caps are having a significant negative impact on the school district.
"Our district is at the beginning phase of having to deal with revenue shortfalls - a process that will cause reductions of up to $1 million per year over the next five years," Evert said.
In the current school year, the Janesville School District is experiencing a shortfall of $3.2 million in state aid for staff salaries and transportation for exceptional educational needs children.
"Senator Robson's bill is a beginning step in the development of legislative considerations to address the dilemma of shortfalls caused by revenue caps," Evert said. "The issue of quality education is the bottom line of funding problems caused by our current revenue cap system."
Thirteen members of the State Assembly and eight state senators are co-sponsoring Robson's bill. The lead Assembly sponsor is Assistant Majority Leader Bonnie Ladwig.
The school district's Joint Legislative Committee was formed in 1998 to study the impact on education of state-mandated limits on both budgets and teachers' salaries. The committee is made up of teachers, administrators, school board members, a student representative, and community leaders.
Last September, the Joint Legislative Committee identified four critical issues, one of which was the problem of funding special education.
Posted April 21, 1999