Special education funding has to cover every student identified as having an exceptional need, plus all of the other students who haven’t been identified yet. Our special needs, and the severity of those needs, have both been rising. If we look at the difference between our total grants and revenue for special education, and our actual expenses, we fall short by about $14 million. In other words, we spend $14 million more than we get. That is not an overspending problem but rather an underfunding problem! So where does that leave us? That $14 million shortfall we have in special education has to be made up from somewhere. I know we all believe that supporting the needs of our special education students, to the fullest of our capabilities, is the right thing to do. To fill the gap and cover the funding shortfall, we have no choice but to take funding from other parts of the budget, from other departments and programs.
Special education funding has to cover every student identified as having an exceptional need, plus all of the other students who haven’t been identified yet. Our special needs, and the severity of those needs, have both been rising. If we look at the difference between our total grants and revenue for special education, and our actual expenses, we fall short by about $14 million. In other words, we spend $14 million more than we get. That is not an overspending problem but rather an underfunding problem! So where does that leave us? That $14 million shortfall we have in special education has to be made up from somewhere. I know we all believe that supporting the needs of our special education students, to the fullest of our capabilities, is the right thing to do. To fill the gap and cover the funding shortfall, we have no choice but to take funding from other parts of the budget, from other departments and programs.