By Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul

The State Assembly Education Committee has advanced our legislation to change the way extraordinary special education aid is calculated for individual school districts to reduce their costs and give them greater predictability in planning and budgeting.The measure would also establish a Special Education Funding Review Task Force.

The State Senate already passed the bill, in which we are joined by our Legislative District 11 partner Senator Vin Gopal as primary sponsors, by a 38-to-1 vote.

The legislation requires the Department of Education to post on its website the calculation of aid payable to each school district in the succeeding year in a user-friendly manner. The DOE would have to post the information, including an explanation of the variables used to determine the district’s aid, within two days of the governor’s budget message each year. This would allow school districts time to plan their budgets.

In recent years, the State’s appropriation for extraordinary special education aid has covered only a portion of eligible costs with the percentage fluctuating from year to year. Our bill would increase the appropriation from year to year, or ensure that the percentage of district costs reimbursed increases from the previous fiscal year.

The bill also takes into account vocational expansion stabilization aid to county vocational school districts. It provides that the amount of the aid to county vocational school districts be adjusted to allow for increases in resident enrollment equal to the number of additional students multiplied by the additional cost per pupil.

Our aim is to reduce the cost to property taxpayers by providing stable, timely and predictable extraordinary special education funding to local school districts and county vocational schools so they have time to plan their budgets.

The Assembly Higher Education Committee voted favorably on our bill to provide increased flexibility in school district enrollment for students who are dependents of parents serving in the armed forces or civilians working for the U.S. Department of Defense and several other federal agencies. The Department of Defense has reached out to our office to support this legislation. 

The bill provides that when a child from a military family relocates outside of their original district of residence, the parent or guardian will have the option to maintain the child’s enrollment in their original district for the remainder of the school year. Additionally, when a military-connected child relocates outside of their original district during the 11th grade, the child may remain enrolled until graduation or enroll in their new school district. 

In an unrelated legislative matter, the full Assembly has passed our legislation to reduce the amount of revenues a municipal tourist development commission must spend on out-of-town advertising from 50 percent to 20 percent. Local tourism development commissions have called us to say that, with the rise of social media and digital ads, they no longer need to spend 50 percent of their budget on advertising.

Our bill would give these municipal commissions more flexibility to spend their budgets in ways the best benefit their town’s tourism goals. The Assembly passed this bill by a 78-1 vote with one abstention. It now moves to the Senate, where Senator Gopal is a primary sponsor.

We intend to work hard to shepherd these bills and our other priority legislation seeking to address affordability, fairness and equity into law before the current legislative session ends next month.

Stay tuned.

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