Preschool Special Education

New York State offers extensive services to its students withdisabilities, including services to children before they reach schoolage. The State's investment in Preschool Special Education has doubled over the past ten-years to a projected State cost of $1.1 billion for the upcoming school year. The Executive Budget proposes several changesto both rationalize the existing Preschool Special Education financingsystem and eliminate potential conflicts of interest.

Rationalizing the Current Finance System. School districts, whilemaking most
programmatic decisions, do not share in the costs of preschool specialeducation, which are paid by the State and counties with 59.5 percentand 40.5 percent shares, respectively. Without a fiduciary interest inthe program, school districts may have little incentive to see thatservices are provided appropriately and efficiently. To address thisdisconnect and to eliminate potential conflicts of interest, theExecutive Budget proposes to:

- Apportion all growth above each county?s share of 2011-12 school year costs equally to school districts, the State, and the county;
- Increase the role of counties when providers request an exception toexisting payment rates;
- Require justification when a distant provider is chosen over closer,suitable providers; and
- Prohibiting, in most cases, children being evaluated by the sameagency that provides the child educational services or by an evaluatorwith a less-than-arms-length
relationship to the agency, to avoid the inherent potential forconflict of interest in
these relationships.