1 1 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 2 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES EDUCATION COMMITTEE 3 4 IRVIS OFFICE BUILDING ROOM G-50 5 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA 6 HOUSE BILL 704 7 SPECIAL EDUCATION FUNDING PUBLIC HEARING 8 9 WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2009 9:02 A.M. 10 11 BEFORE: 12 HONORABLE JAMES R. ROEBUCK, JR., MAJ. CHAIRMAN HONORABLE KEN SMITH 13 HONORABLE LAWRENCE H. CURRY HONORABLE BARBARA MCILVAINE SMITH 14 HONORABLE JOHN T. YUDICHAK HONORABLE MIKE CARROLL 15 HONORABLE H. SCOTT CONKLIN HONORABLE RICHARD T. GRUCELA 16 HONORABLE PATRICK J. HARKINS HONORABLE MARK LONGIETTI 17 HONORABLE JOHN E. PALLONE HONORABLE JAKE WHEATLEY 18 HONORABLE ROSITA C. YOUNGBLOOD HONORABLE PAUL I. CLYMER, MIN. CHAIRMAN 19 HONORABLE WILL TALLMAN HONORABLE BERNIE O'NEILL 20 HONORABLE THOMAS J. QUIGLEY HONORABLE KATHY L. RAPP 21 HONORABLE MIKE FLECK HONORABLE DARYL D. METCALFE 22 HONORABLE DUANE MILNE HONORABLE MIKE REESE 23 ___________________________________________ 24 BRENDA J. PARDUN P. O. BOX 278 25 MAYTOWN, PA 17550 717-426-1596 PHONE/FAX 2 1 ALSO PRESENT: 2 HONORABLE MICHAEL STURLA 3 SONIA TERECH, LEGISLATIVE AIDE (D) ERIN DIXON, RESEARCH ANALYST (D) 4 ALYSSA ACKERMAN, INTERN (D) PATTY WHITE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (R) 5 ASHLEY DEMAURO, RESEARCH ANALYST (R) JOY ANDERSON, RESEARCH ANALYST (R) 6 DUSTIN GINGRICH, RESEARCH ANALYST (R) 7 8 BRENDA J. PARDUN REPORTER - NOTARY PUBLIC 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 INDEX 2 NAME PAGE 3 OPENING REMARKS 4 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK 4 HONORABLE MICHAEL STURLA 6 5 BARUCH KINTISCH 11 6 DIRECTOR OF POLICY ADVOCACY EDUCATION LAW CENTER 7 KENNETH OAKES 16 8 ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, SPECIAL EDUCATION ARCADIA UNIVERSITY 9 BOARD MEMBER AND CHAIR EDUCATION & EARLY CHILDHOOD SUBCOMMITTEE 10 THE ARC OF PENNSYLVANIA 11 SANDRA L. ZELNO 17 SCHOOL REFORM ASSOCIATE 12 EDUCATION LAW CENTER 13 ROY GALLOWAY 19 CHILDREN'S POLICY COORDINATOR 14 STAFF ATTORNEY DISABILITY RIGHTS NETWORK OF PENNSYLVANIA 15 DR. THOMAS NEUVILLE 21 16 PROFESSOR, SPECIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT MILLERSVILLE UNIVERSITY 17 DR. SHERRI L. SMITH 27 18 SUPERINTENDENT LOWER DAUPHIN SCHOOL DISTRICT 19 JANE CARROLL 71 20 SENIOR FELLOW EDUCATION POLICY AND LEADERSHIP CENTER 21 PA SCHOOL FUNDING CAMPAIGN 22 LISA LANDIS 77 GOVERNMENT RELATIONS SPECIALIST 23 PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL BOARD ASSOCIATION 24 JANIS RISCH 82 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 25 GOOD SCHOOLS PA 4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Good morning. I'd 3 like to call the House Education Committee 4 meeting to order. 5 Today's hearing, mini hearing, 6 concerns House Bill 704, Representative 7 Sturla's legislation that would establish a 8 new funding formula for state special- 9 education funding. 10 I'd like to begin by asking that the 11 members of the committee who are here would 12 introduce themselves. I'm Jim Roebuck, 13 chairman of the committee, from Philadelphia. 14 And if we begin -- why don't we begin 15 at this end. 16 REPRESENTATIVE HARKINS: Good 17 morning, everyone. Pat Harkins, Erie. 18 REPRESENTATIVE CONKLIN: Scott 19 Conklin, Centre County. 20 REPRESENTATIVE MCILVAINE SMITH: Barb 21 McIlvaine Smith, Chester County. 22 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: Paul Clymer, 23 chair of the Republican House Committee, from 24 Bucks County. 25 REPRESENTATIVE RAPP: Representative 5 1 Rapp, Warren, Forest, and Mckean Counties. 2 REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Ken Smith, 3 Lackawanna County. 4 REPRESENTATIVE YUDICHAK: Good 5 morning. John Yudichak, Luzerne County. 6 REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: 7 Representative Tom Quigley, from Montgomery 8 County. 9 REPRESENTATIVE REESE: Mike Reese, 10 from Westmoreland and Fayette County. 11 REPRESENTATIVE O'NEILL: Good 12 morning. Bernie O'Neill, from Bucks County. 13 REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Good 14 morning. Will Tallman, Adams and York 15 Counties. 16 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: Good 17 morning. Jake Wheatley, from Allegheny 18 County, Pittsburgh. 19 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Duane Milne, 20 Chester County. 21 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you. 22 Like to begin by asking -- the format 23 of the meeting is that we will have an initial 24 presentation by representative Sturla, and 25 then we'll have two separate panels that will 6 1 give us brief, brief, brief description of the 2 legislation, and we will then go into 3 questions and answers. 4 I'm being advised that Representative 5 Sturla is delayed. We will begin with the 6 first panel. 7 If they will come forward and 8 introduce themselves. And give their 9 presentation. 10 REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER: Wait a 11 second, Representative Sturla's here. 12 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: And you also, 13 Mark, you want to, as you go by, introduce 14 yourself. 15 REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Sure. 16 Representative Mark Longietti, from Mercer 17 County. 18 CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you. 19 Representative Sturla, will give us a 20 few opening comments on this legislation. 21 REPRESENTATIVE STURLA: Thank you. 22 And I apologize for being late. It seemed 23 like traffic today was running an obstacle 24 course for me. 25 Thanks for the opportunity to be able 7 1 to testify about House Bill 705 (sic), and I 2 want to thank you, in particular, 3 Representative McIlvaine Smith and Chairman 4 Roebuck for making this a priority, moving 5 this special-education funding formula 6 forward. 7 Before I begin, there's information 8 in your binders. Obviously, you can all look 9 at that. But I want to go back, about 10 eighteen and a half years, when I first became 11 a legislator here. At that point in time, the 12 way we funded special education in the state 13 of Pennsylvania was what was called an "excess 14 cost system." School districts would 15 calculate how much they had spent on a 16 special-ed student, and anything that was in 17 excess of the cost of educating a regular-ed 18 student, they kept track of that, sent a bill 19 to the state, and the state would reimburse 20 them in full for any excess costs. 21 At the time, in 1990, when I got 22 here, that was the fastest growing line item 23 in the budget. And, quite frankly, many 24 school districts were abusing that system. 25 They would get a special-needs student and 8 1 somebody would say, Well, gosh, it's going to 2 be, you know, difficult to have my special- 3 needs student ride on the bus with somebody 4 else. And they'd say, No problem. We'll buy 5 you a van. And they would buy a van, and 6 they'd transport the student. And then the 7 other part of the day they'd use it to take 8 kids to track meets or they would do something 9 else, but every excess cost that they could 10 think of got pushed into the special-ed line 11 item. 12 So, obviously, we needed to curb that 13 abuse. And we did that through a formula 14 developed back then that recognized the fact 15 that the state's special-needs population was, 16 on average, about 16 percent for years prior 17 to that. And so we said, Well, that seems 18 pretty consistent. Let's just say that it's 19 going to be 16 percent, and we'll take a 20 school district's population times 16 percent, 21 that is how many special-needs students they 22 have -- they will have, and what we'll do is, 23 we'll determine how much we're going to spend 24 on special education. And we'll pick a number 25 out of the air each year, depending on how 9 1 much we think we can afford. We'll divide it 2 by the total number of students in the state 3 of Pennsylvania times 16 percent, and that's 4 what we'll push out to each individual 5 district. 6 That formula, because there was 7 enough money in the budget at that point in 8 time, seemed like an okay system. But it has 9 grown to be an unfair system, and it gets more 10 unfair every year. There are some school 11 districts that have an 8 percent special-needs 12 population, and other school districts that 13 have a 28 percent special-needs population. 14 Each one of those districts is getting 15 reimbursed like they have a 16 percent 16 special-needs population. 17 So if you happen to be one of those 18 lucky school districts that have a low 19 incidence of special-needs students for 20 whatever the reason, this special-ed funding 21 formula seems like an okay deal. You're 22 getting reimbursed at twice the rate that you 23 should. 24 If you have 28 percent special-needs 25 students, it doesn't look like such a very 10 1 good deal. And, in fact, for those students 2 in those school districts, it's really a short 3 changing of their needs as well as the 4 regular-ed students, where the school district 5 robs dollars from to help to pay for the 6 special-needs students. 7 So, with that, we can get into some 8 of the details of the panels that you'll have 9 coming before you. They can probably do a 10 much better job of that than I can, and rather 11 than me doing it and having them say, well, 12 let me explain how it really works, I'll defer 13 to them for some of the details on this. 14 And these panels that you're going to 15 see -- I mean, I have eighteen years' 16 experience trying to deal with special eds -- 17 special-ed needs, they have a hundred eighty 18 years dealing with special-ed needs combined.