BILL ANALYSIS
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AJR 31
Author: Buchanan (D), et al
Amended: 4/6/10 in Assembly
Vote: 21
WITHOUT REFERENCE TO COMMITTEE OR FILE
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 71-0, 4/8/10 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Special education funding
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This resolution memorializes the Congress and
the President of the United States to enact one of the
bills pending before Congress that would fully fund the
federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
ANALYSIS :
Existing Law
1.Provides support for special education through a
combination of federal, state and local funds.
2.Establishes special education local plan areas (SELPAs)
as the entity responsible for distributing state
allocated special education funding to school districts
and for coordinating services to students with
disabilities.
CONTINUED
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3.Allocates state, federal and local funding to each SELPA
based on a historical rate per average daily attendance
(ADA) which was substantially equalized by 2001, the
total ADA in the SELPA, growth and cost of living
adjustments (COLA), additional adjustments for
equalization, and a special disabilities adjustment to
offset the fact that pupils with high cost/low incidence
disabilities are not uniformly distributed across SELPAs.
This resolution:
1.Makes findings as to the importance of special education,
the insufficient levels of federal funding for special
education in California and across the country, and the
existence of bills pending in Congress that would act to
increase special education funding.
2.Memorializes the Congress and the President of the United
States to enact one of the bills pending before Congress
that would fully fund the federal Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act.
Comments
The disabilities that qualify a student for special
education vary widely, from a mild speech or learning
disability to conditions that require specialized,
individual care that goes well beyond classroom
instruction. About half of students enrolled in special
education have a learning disability, and another quarter
have a speech or language impairment. These conditions
qualify a student for extra assistance but, in general,
have a moderate impact on the cost of education. Much more
dramatic are the costs of educating the other quarter of
students with more serious disabilities, including mental
retardation; visual, orthopedic, or other health
impairments; emotional disturbance; loss of hearing and/or
sight; traumatic brain injuries; or multiple disabilities.
Special education is funded with a combination of state,
federal and local funds. The state and federal governments
together are providing funding of approximately $5 billion
in the current fiscal year for special education; less than
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$2 billion of those funds come from the federal government.
This funding, which goes first to the SELPA and then is
distributed out to districts, does not cover the full cost
of educating students with disabilities. Local educational
agencies (LEAs), school districts and county offices of
education, are expected to provide a share from property
tax and other revenues, including the base revenue limit
funding received for students with disabilities in the same
way as for all other students. The primary funding problem
facing special education stems from shortfall in funding
provided by the federal government relative to the
commitment that was historically made. This shortfall
means that a LEA must use its general fund revenues to
supplement local special education expenditures beyond what
was historically expected of them.
In the initial 1975 authorization of the Education for All
Handicapped Children Act (the individuals with Disabilities
Education Act [IDEA] is the current reauthorization of this
act, Congress recognized the mandates that were being
imposed on states and LEAs, and stated a goal that the
federal government would provide special education funding
equal to 40 percent of the funding necessary to cover the
national average expenditure per pupil in public schools.
Estimates of the current ongoing federal contribution to
special education funding have ranged from 13 to 25 percent
- clearly short of the 40 percent commitment. The burden
for making up this shortfall has fallen on the states and
LEAs which must comply with the mandates. This situation
has been exacerbated by rapid growth in the number of
students with disabilities, particularly those with higher
cost disabilities such as autism.
This federal funding shortfall, and more specifically the
slowdown in federal grant increases for special education
through the middle part of this decade, has also lead to
changes with respect to funding the special education COLA.
From 2002-03 through 2004-05, increases in the federal
grant were used to fund COLA and growth on the full special
education funding entitlement; however, this resulted in a
change in federal law that prohibited states fro using
federal funds to pay for any adjustment for COLA or growth
that is required by state law. Subsequent to that change,
budget actions have been taken to provide funding for COLA
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and growth on the state and local portion of the special
education allocations using state funds, and to provide for
COLA and growth on the federal portion using increases in
the federal grant. Thus, in years when the federal
government does not provide sufficient special education
funds to cover COLA and growth, those adjustments are not
fully provided for federal funds.
A $1.2 billion infusion of federal funds for IDEA was made
available for allocation to California local educational
agencies as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA) from federal FY 2009 funds. This large one-time
increment in special education funding was meant to be used
for short-term investments that had the potential for
long-term benefits for students with disabilities, rather
than for expenditures that LEAs may not be able to sustain
once the ARRA funds were expended. It was hoped that these
funds would begin to bridge the funding gap between the
federal 40 percent commitment and the actual level of
funding provided to special education, and that Congress
would take action to make those one-time funds permanent.
Unfortunately, it has become clear that these ARRA funds
will not be ongoing; on December 16, 2009, the President
signed Public Law 111-117, the Consolidated Appropriations
Act, 2010, providing approximately $11.5 billion in
on-going FY 2010 funding for special education, the same
level as was provided in FY 2009. Additional Congressional
action would be necessary to increase this funding, and
thus relieve some of the funding pressure placed on the
state and LEAs.
Prior Legislation
The Legislature has adopted numerous resolutions that are
substantially similar to this resolution, including AJR 83
(Daucher), Resolution Chapter 132, Statutes of 2004, SJR 11
(Alpert), Resolution Chapter 68, Statutes of 2003; SJR 10
(Poochigian), Resolution Chapter 19, Statutes of 2001; AJR
40 (Wildman), Resolution Chapter 87, Statutes of 2008; and
AJR 12 (Lempert), Resolution Chapter 76, Statutes of 199.
These resolutions have all asked to the President and
Congress of the United States to provide the full federal
share of funding for special education programs to the
states so that California and other states will not be
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required to take funding from other vital state and local
programs to fund the under-funded federal special education
mandate. Also, AB 602 (Davis), Chapter 854, Statutes of
1997, implements the current special education funding
system that allocates federal and state funds through
SELPAs to LEAs.
FISCAL EFFECT : Fiscal Com.: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 6/22/10)
California Advisory Commission on Special Education
(source)
The Arc of California
CARS+ The Organization for Special Educators
California Association of Private Special Education Schools
California School Employees Association, AFL-CIO
California Communities United Institute
California School Nurses Organization
California State Council on Developmental Disabilities
California Teachers Association
Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special Education
Special Education Local Plan Area Administrators
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author's office,
the purpose of this resolution is to ask Congress and the
President of the United States to enact one of the bills
pending before Congress that would fully fund the federal
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Anderson, Arambula, Beall, Bill
Berryhill, Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield,
Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Caballero, Charles
Calderon, Carter, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De
La Torre, De Leon, DeVore, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Feuer,
Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines,
Galgiani, Garrick, Hagman, Hall, Hayashi, Hernandez,
Hill, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Lieu, Bonnie
Lowenthal, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande,
Niello, Nielsen, Norby, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas,
Saldana, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Audra
Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Tran,
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Villines, Yamada
NO VOTE RECORDED: Bass, Gilmore, Harkey, Huber, Logue, Ma,
V. Manuel Perez, John A. Perez, Vacancy
CPM:cm 6/23/10 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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