Colorado

IDEA Money Watch has obtained the information submitted by the Colorado Dept. of Education to the U.S. Dept. of Education regarding reduction to local spending (maintenance of effort or MOE) and use of federal IDEA funds for Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS) for each school district for the 2009 fiscal year. Get Colorado information here. (PDF, 8 pgs).

This information is important because it indicates if school districts reduced local spending in light of IDEA Recovery Act funds in FY 2009. IDEA does not require that local districts replace these funds when the Recovery funds run out, putting services for students with disabilities at risk.

BY REID ARMSTRONG AND TONYA BINA SKY-HI DAILY NEWS GRAND COUNTY CO COLORADO,

The regional cooperative agency that provides state-mandated special educational services to the six school districts of northwest Colorado is in financial trouble.

BOCES is in arrears some $777,000 in federal reimbursement payments to the schools in the Northwest district for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, leaving West Grand with a $139,000 budget shortfall and East Grand with a $220,000 shortfall, according to school district officials.

In mid-September, BOCES administrators came to its board of directors, made up of representatives from each of the six member districts, with the news that it had overspent its 2008-09 budget by $316,000.

Staff also alerted the board that it would need to increase its 2009-10 assessment by more than $472,000 to balance its budget.

BOCES claims that the reason for the shortfall was that they under-assessed the services provided to the districts.

BOCES said it could pay about two-thirds of what it owes the schools and initially asked the member districts to pay for the remainder out-of-pocket.

The districts, however, had already set their budgets for the year based on last year’s assessments and could not make up for the deficit.

After much consideration, on Nov. 12 the BOCES board approved the use of $870,000 in stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to settle the bill — funding that would have otherwise have gone to the school districts.

Since the Northwest BOCES was not eligible to use ARRA funds to backfill current expenses, it gained a waiver from the Colorado Department of Education.

“The bad side is that we were going to get that money anyway and we had plans to use it,” said West Grand School District superintendent Kevin Chalfant. “We are out that money now.”

For the East Grand School District, that money could have been used to improve classrooms and augment specialized equipment for special-needs students, according to Superintendent Nancy Karas.

“So that is the loss,” she said. “But the other side of that is, it saved teachers. We were at risk of losing much more if we would have had to pay it out of the general fund.”

The East Grand district’s sacrifice in ARRA funding amounts to $86,000.

“The frustrating part is, those are our expenses, and we are liable for those,” Karas said. “But they (BOCES) have a responsibility to be accurate in their budgeting so they can assess us the right amount. To come back a year later — for two years of an assessment that wasn’t budgeted for — was potentially crippling to some of the districts. And that’s why we had to make the choice and come to an agreement to use our stimulus funds.”

BOCES will further cut costs by reducing health insurance for its staff, scaling back on mileage reimbursements and cutting out budget contingencies.

 The six BOCES district superintendents meet monthly as part of the consortium. Budget problems have been determined to be a result of mismanagement rather than any embezzlement or financial scandal, according to both East and West Grand superintendents.

“My understanding is that at this point, we have no reason to believe there was any fraud,” Karas said.

Mistakes appear to have stemmed from mismanagement of multiple levels of accounts and administering federal funds after services and bills had already been paid, resulting in faulty budget processes.

“I think it was through that shell game they lost sight of what the actual balances were,” Karas said.

As a result of an investigation into BOCES’ budget problems, the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has revoked NWBOCES’ ability to serve as the fiscal agent for federal title funds for the remainder of this year.

According to CDE deputy commissioner Robert K. Hammond, this decision was based on: BOCES’ inability to assure NCLB funds are being properly accounted for, managed and used; inappropriate use of NCLB funds to support BOCES’ programs; failure to reimburse member districts for their expenditures; violation of federal law with regards to federally funded programs; and, accrual of interest on federal funds.

The BOCES board has planned a special meeting with an executive session on Nov. 23 in Steamboat Springs to potentially discuss personnel matters.

 — Reid Armstrong can be reached at 970-887-3334 ext. 19610 or rarmstrong@skyhidailynews.com. Tonya Bina can be reached at ext. 19603 or tbina@skyhidailynews.com.

Denver Post :: July 12, 2009

This story in the Denver Post reports on the condition of special education in the state and the need for improvements.  This article begs the question:  What will Colorado do with the $148,730,571 it will receive in IDEA Part B funds under the Recovery Act??? Read the full story here.

According to an article in Vail Daily, Bruce Caughey of the Colorado Association of School Executives claims that “Under the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal government made a commitment to fund 40 percent of the annual cost of special education services for every identified student — the feds are only actually paying 21 percent.” Full article here.

WRONG: The IDEA authorizes the federal government to provide assistance to states and local school districts to help defray some of the additional costs associated with providing special education to students with disabilities. That assistance was promised at 40% of the national average annual per pupil expenditure — not 40% of excess cost and certainly not 40% of the total cost. Students with disabilities are entitled to the same per pupil expenditure as all other students in the district. In fact, most students with disabilities spend most of their school day in general education classrooms — so only a portion of their “expense” is special services.

On June 2, 2009, the U.S. Department of Education released its determinations for every state in the nations. For three consecutive years Colorado received a “Needs Intervention” rating -  making it one of only 3 jurisdictions in that category (the others are Indiana and the District of Columbia). The USED must now require a corrective action plan or compliance agreement, or withhold further payments of federal funds to the state. The corresponding ratings for school districts in the state are available here.

May 14, 2009

In response to a request for public records under the state’s Public Records law, the Colorado Department of Education has provided a listing of the 2009 ratings determined for each school district in the state based on its State Performance Plan indicators. The list of ratings is available here.

Of the 58 districts rated, 26 received a “Meets Requirements” rating; 22 received a “Needs Assistance” rating and 10 received a “Needs Intervention” rating. These ratings are important because they determine a district’s eligibility to reduce its local level of expenditures for special education as allowable by IDEA. See Q 9 under FAQs for more details.