Mat-Su seeks $4.3 million from state

Aug. 5, 2007

By GREG JOHNSON/Frontiersman

MAT-SU - A fate of a lawsuit filed by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District against the state Department of Education and Early Development will soon be in the hands of a judge. At stake is $4.3 million in special education funding the Mat-Su school district believes it's owed for the 2006-2007 school year.

The school district filed the suit in February, claiming the audit procedure the Department of Education uses to determine special education funding is &#8220discriminatory” and violates the Individuals with Disabilities Act, said Lucy Hope, student support services director for the district.

Final briefs to the court are due Friday, Hope said. Following that, it's up to the court to rule.

In February 2006, the Department of Education and Early Development revised its audit procedures, she said. As a result, Mat-Su schools were denied funding for 69 intensive needs students. Whereas the district traditionally recognized about 2 percent of its student population as having special needs, the revised audit dropped that to .8 percent for 2006-2007.

That compares to other large school districts in the state with similar or smaller student enrollment, which maintained their average special needs enrollment and received appropriate funding, the district reports. In Fairbanks, the district there had 1.95 percent eligible, Sitka 2.48 percent and Juneau 2.67 percent.

&#8220The [state] department's funding of intensive students is what prompted the lawsuit,” Hope said. &#8220The district believes the funding was [discriminatory] in its treatment of different districts and inadequate. … Historically, for the last nine or 10 years, we received funding for about 2 percent of our students, which is comparable to other districts in the state.”

Failing to fully fund state and federally funded mandates is not fair to the Mat-Su district and its entire student body, Hope said. Even without the $4.3 million the district feels it's owed, it is &#8220still obligated under federal and state mandates to provide a free education for those intensive needs students.”

The district needs to spend that money to serve special education programs, which means other areas of its budget will suffer, Hope said.

&#8220What this means for the district … is the entire operating budget is affected,” she said, adding that $4.3 million &#8220is a huge amount of money in our operating budget. It doesn't just affect our special education students, it affects every student.”

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2268 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.