FOREST LEAVES — May 11, 2005

State count error shorted District 90 share

BY CHRIS LAFORTUNE

STAFF WRITER

An Illinois Board of Education counting error, not a change in a state funding formula, lead state officials to erroneously short its estimate of River Forest Elementary District 90's special education funding next school year by nearly $70,000.

Federation of Districts for Special Education Co-Director Robert Giles said last week that the state didn't count 630 private school students within District 90's boundaries when calculating the district's estimated funding of $374,000.

Giles said FDSE discovered the error after the District 90 board pushed him to look at the decrease in its special education allocation.

"They kept wanting to know what happened," he said. "They pushed us to keep looking and looking until we finally found it."

District 90 Business Manager Anthony Cozzi told the School Board of the enrollment miscount during a committee meeting last week.

At a rate of about $100 apiece, Giles said, that accounts for just about all the money District 90 was set to lose in the allocation of special education grant money for next year.

"It never dawned on me that the Illinois State Board of Education would make a mistake like that," Giles said. "I always looked at their figures as being correct."

The state counts private school enrollment because public schools are required to provide special education services to any private school student who needs them, State Board of Education Spokeswoman Becky Watts said Thursday.

Parents pay property tax for public schools even if they send their students to private school, Watts said, and so are still eligible for those services. "When they turn 16, they get drivers education, too," Watts said.

Giles, as reported last week, initially thought the drop in District 90's funding was due to relative poverty rates, which also enter into the state calculation.

FDSE includes District 90 as well as District 91 in Forest Park, District 98 in North Berwyn, District 99 in Cicero, District 100 in South Berwyn and Morton High School District 201.

The state will get the enrollment corrected for the final allocation, Giles said, which will come out this summer.

"We will amend that amount back into their grant around November or December," Giles said.

District 90's Board April 25 rejected the FDSE budget to express displeasure with the lowered share.

Now the board is scheduled to reconsider the budget at its meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the learning center at Roosevelt Middle School, 7560 Oak Ave.

If the district ended up losing money on the special education allocation, Cozzi said it would have had to deal with it best it could.

"It's the same way we'll deal with it if Gov. Blagojevich passes the state budget and we have to deal with whatever categoricals (grants) are coming or not coming," Cozzi said.

Cozzi warned he's not ready to celebrate the FDSE allocation until the new numbers come in. The district has been told the enrollment miscount accounted for the entire reduction in money, he said.

Chris LaFortune can be reached at clafortune@pioneerlocal.com.