Cutting special ed costs
Schools collaborate to save on transportation spending
Facing cuts to state aid, local school administrators are renewing efforts to collaborate with each other in the ongoing search for savings.
From buying Chromebooks in bulk to coordinating special education bus- ing, they are trying to find ever more ways to save thousands of dollars by regionalizing services. Districts spend tens of thousands of dol- lars per child to bus special education students to schools outside their hometown that can better meet their needs. But that bill could be lowered thanks to a new system that will help districts coordinate rides and save money.
EdAdvance, a Regional Educational Service Center that helps the western part of the state, is developing an interactive map that will show where students live and where they travel to for school.
RESCs were created more than three decades ago by legislative mandate to help districts communicate and collaborate.
The map will help districts pair up students from other towns who might take a similar route, as well as compare how much other van services charge.
“They have at their fingertips the opportunity to plan or try to plan for ride sharing,” said Jeff Kitching, executive director of EdAdvance.
EdAdvance has already collected information from 15 districts in northern Fairfield and Litchfield counties and expects to receive data from four others, Kitching said.
Historically, special education directors from different towns have called each other to see whether their students could share rides.
“It was completely inefficient,” Bethel Superintendent Christine Carver said. “It works to a degree and it works based on people's relationships with each other.”
But administrators expect this database will be much more effective.
“Now, there is a systematic way of doing it,” Danbury Superintendent Sal Pascarella said. “It’s much more sophisticated. The outcome should be greater.”
“Special education is all legally obligatory and when it is now taking a quarter out of every dollar, we want to make sure we’re shepherding the towns’ resources to the greater degree.” Jeff Kitching, executive director of EdAdvance
Sharing services
Superintendents said they are unsure exactly how much their towns could save because the cost of rides vary depending on the company, how far students travel and whether that student needs a handicap- accessible bus or aid.
Transporting one student could cost $ 40,000 to $ 50,000, but if the child needs a special van or an aid that could cost $ 70,000, said Thomas McMorran, superintendent for Easton, Redding and Region 9.
So, the savings could be significant.
“If you can get four or five kids on one bus, boy, you can really cut your costs,” Brookfield Superintendent John Barile said.
Josh Smith, superintendent in New Milford, said he will take any savings he can get. Still, he said it is too soon for the new system to help the district tackle a $ 1.2 million cut from the school board’s original budget proposal for next year.
“It would be nice to say next year we can reduce our transportation because we’ve had some efficiencies, but we're a little early in the process just yet,” Smith said.
The mapping system is just one idea districts developed over the past six months as part of a newly formed group of Danbury area superintendents and other administrators. The goal is to find ways—both big and small— to share programs and costs among towns.
“We have to think more regionally in a lot of our work because local communities are having an increasingly difficult time meeting the educational needs of the community and responding to state and federal mandates,” Smith said.
Already, the districts ordered Chromebooks in bulk, helping to save Bethel $ 10 to $ 15 per item, said Carver, who helped spearhead the group.
“Which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you’re ordering 500 of them, it's a step in the right direction,” she said.
Next year, the administrators plan to discuss whether they could share more services for students with unique needs. This includes students who have been expelled or adult special education students, who districts are required to serve until they are 22.
The districts could also share board certified behavior analysts, who work with students with behavioral problems.
In Bethel, for example, the district only has one of these analysts. It must contract services to meet all students’ needs, which is expensive, Carver said.
Rising costs
The districts have not delved into how sharing these services would work exactly. But hypothetically, EdAdvance could hire an analyst who would spend several hours a week in various districts, Carver said.
Kitching suggested EdAdvance could hire tradespeople, such as electricians or plumbers, who would work across several districts as needed. This would be more cost effective than a district calling a plumber for a one-time job.
“They could save a lot of money in their operating budget and still get the services they need,” Kitching said.
But, with special education accounting for about a quarter of the area districts’ budgets, these costs were one of the main focuses this year, McMorran said.
“Special education is all legally obligatory and when it is now taking a quarter out of every dollar, we want to make sure we’re shepherding the towns’ resources to the greater degree,” he said.
Special education costs in general have been rising for the last 20 years, while the state reimbursement for these costs is going down, Kitching said. Meanwhile, towns have no way to keep costs down at a private school where some special needs students are sent, he said.
“There is no real way when it comes to out-ofdistrict placement for school districts to hold a hard line on costs,” Kitching said. “The costs go up and they are legally and morally obligated to provide education for students regardless of need.”
The rising cost of special education was a big problem for towns such as Brookfield this year, which saw a more than $ 1 million unanticipated increase in these costs in 2017- 18. This was in part because 12 more special education students than expected needed to be placed out of the district.
The high cost of special education helped drive up next year’s school budget, which took three tries to pass.
Meanwhile, many Brookfield residents are struggling to pay to clean up damage from last month’s storm, so the town needs to be extra cognizant of costs, Barile said
“We need to show them we’re doing everything we can not only to educate the students, but to get it at the best price,” he said.