DATE:	June 23, 2011

TO:	Superintendents and District Business Managers

RE:	Special Education Maintenance of Effort and House Bill 5055

Earlier this week, the Legislature passed House Bill 5055, which addresses a number of funding issues, including Oregon’s Special Education Maintenance of Effort (MOE), for the 2009-11 biennium. 

Last March, the Oregon Department of Education (Department) submitted a request to the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) to waive Oregon’s requirements to maintain financial support for special education services for the 2010-11 school year. Oregon submitted its waiver, as did a number of other states, in response to declining state revenues due to the downturn in the economy. In April, the USDOE responded to the Department with notification that Oregon’s waiver request had been denied. USDOE went on to say it had determined the State has not experienced an exceptional or uncontrollable circumstance preventing it from meeting its required level of State financial support. 

Without the waiver, if the State fails to maintain financial support required by law, the USDOE must reduce the allocation of funds to the State under section 611 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 

In House Bill 5055, the Legislature has appropriated $13.8 million General Fund to the Department of Education in order to meet state-level MOE requirements. Thus, the USDOE will now be able to award Oregon the full amount of its Federal Fiscal Year 2011 Section 611 allocation. 

Subsection 9 of HB 5055 identifies $13.8 million is to be distributed to school districts in addition to those moneys distributed through the State School Fund for the 2010-11 school year based on calculations made under ORS 327.013 (1)(c)(A)(i). In other words, these funds are to be allocated to school districts for the exclusive purpose of providing special education and related services, and we’ll be using the 2010-11 11% IEP Cap counts to determine the allocations for the school districts.  

The Department has posted the results of these calculations on the State School Fund website. Please see the News Announcements at the following URL for further details: http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/results/?id=168 

It is the Department’s intent to distribute the additional funds shortly after the Governor has signed HB 5055 into law and the funds become available to the Department. In an attempt to distribute these funds as quickly as possible, the Department will be using the State School Fund system to deposit these funds into your pool accounts. Please note: These are not State School Fund dollars. These funds are intended to be used exclusively for special education and related services and are in addition to the State School Fund, and will not be included in the formula. 

If you should have further questions, please contact: 

Special Education questions:

Steve Smith
Director of Operations
Office of Student Learning & Partnerships
Steve.W.Smith@state.or.us

Nancy Latini
Assistant Superintendent
Office of Student Learning & Partnerships
Nancy.Latini@state.or.us

School district allocations, disbursements and HB 5055 questions: 

Mike Wiltfong
Director of School Finance
Office of Finance and Administration
Michael.Wiltfong@state.or.us

Sue MacGlashan
Assistant Superintendent
Office of Finance and Administration
Susan.MacGlashan@state.or.us