Falmouth Public Schools will pay at least an additional $400,000 next year to send students with special needs to schools outside the district. This is due to inflation adjustments made by the state’s Executive Office for Administration and Finance that increases tuition at these schools by 14 percent.
In Massachusetts, students with severe developmental disabilities are placed in schools that specialize in offering appropriate, therapeutic education. Public school districts then pay the child’s tuition at these specialized out-of-district schools.
Over the past decade, the average increase in out-of-district school tuitions has been 1.87 percent.
“This is very different and came as a surprise, especially right now as we’re trying to create our budget” for Fiscal Year 2023, Superintendent Lori S. Duerr said at the Falmouth School Committee meeting on Monday, November 14.
The 14 percent increase breaks down into two parts: a 5.18 percent cost of living adjustment and an 8.82 percent workforce stabilization factor, according to an fact sheet on the decision compiled by the Association of School Business Officials International and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.
The workforce stabilization factor is meant to replace a series of workforce grants the state gave to special education schools for 2022 and 2023, the fact sheet says. These grants were awarded to help mitigate “extraordinary costs” and “economic challenges,” according to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The Operational Services Division “absolutely ha[s] the right” to increase out-of-district costs, Dr. Duerr said. However, the division has an obligation to “incorporate cost containment standards” and “be fair to both government and units and providers,” she said, quoting Massachusetts General Law.
The Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents instructed its members to send letters to legislators telling them that this increase was too much too fast, Dr. Duerr said.
“We get that increasing costs over time is reasonable,” she said. However, she said, the suddenness of this increase is an issue for the district.
The district is holding out hope that the out-of-district cost increase will not be final. In the meantime, whether this will be paid for out of the school’s operating budget or a special town “out-of-district stabilization fund” (which the town set up years ago to buffer against spikes in costs) is not yet decided, Dr. Duerr said.
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