Politics As Usual = Exploitation

Pre school Special Education

Annual Cost: Over $1.5 billion
State Cost: Over $936 million
County Cost: Over $637 million

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Chapter 23 of the Laws of 1989 established the Preschool Program for Children with Handicapping Conditions-Educational Program as Section 4410 of the Education Law. This law included a provision to reduce the county fiscal liability to 25 percent by the 1993-94 school year. Instead, counties now pay 40.5 percent of the program costs and 100 percent of the costs over the State mandated cap on the costs for transporting these children to their service providers. Beginning with the Deficit Reduction Act of 1990, the State has reneged on its statutory assurances of increased State fiscal participation in the program. The State has consistently resorted to balancing its own budget in part by decreasing the State’s portion of these costs.
At the same time that counties’ share has grown, the total costs for this mandated program have grown exponentially, from $96 million in 1989 to over $1 billion in 2010, with the county’s 40.5 percent share being $420 million.

The federal and state law places responsibility for the program with the educational system and gives decision-making authority to school districts, even though counties continue to bear the financial burden for service and programmatic decisions.

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