Bill
HB 1547
Creates a 2025-26 interim Special Education Funding Committee to review funding models, identify issues, and report findings and recommendations to the next legislative assembly.
Status / Intro
- Bill: HB 1547
- Title: An act to create a committee to study special education funding during the 2025–26 interim; and to provide for a legislative management report.
- Introduced: (per materials) Dec. 9, 2024. Filed with Secretary of State: 03/24.
- Action required: Establishes an interim study and requires a report to the next legislative assembly.
Purpose and intent
- To create a legislatively staffed committee charged with conducting a comprehensive review of how special education is funded, identify problems and opportunities, and produce findings and legislative recommendations for the next legislative session.
Key provisions
- Establishment and staffing
- Legislative Management shall establish the Special Education Funding Committee during the 2025–26 interim and provide staffing and administrative services.
- The Legislative Management chairman may add temporary, nonvoting members as deemed necessary; such temporary members serve without compensation.
- Committee membership (per the engrossed version)
- Eight legislative members (four representatives and four senators), appointed by Legislative Management.
- Practitioner and district representatives: two multi‑unit special education directors; one large‑school special education director; one special education coordinator; one superintendent of a large school; one superintendent of a small or midsize school; one business manager of a large school; and one multi‑unit special education business manager.
- Scope of study
- A comprehensive review of special education funding models, explicitly including:
- Student contracts
- Funding for high‑cost students
- Residential placement costs
- Medicaid reimbursement mechanisms for special education services
- Report and deliverables
- The committee must report findings, recommendations, and any necessary implementing legislation to the Seventieth Legislative Assembly.
Who is affected
- School districts and multi‑unit school systems (especially business managers and special education directors)
- Superintendents and special education coordinators
- Students with disabilities and families (potential changes to placement, services and funding)
- State agencies that manage education financing and Medicaid reimbursement
- Legislators who will consider the committee’s recommendations in the next session
Timeline / Procedural notes
- Study period: 2025–26 interim (occurs between legislative sessions)
- Final report: submitted to the Seventieth Legislative Assembly (the next regular session after the interim)
- Legislative Management provides staffing and appoints legislative members.
Potential impact
- The study could lead to legislative changes in special education finance formulas, state reimbursement policies (including Medicaid relationships), rules on residential placement and inter‑district student contract payments, and administrative practices affecting district budgets and student services. Recommendations would guide lawmakers crafting statutory or budgetary reforms.
Compiled from official sources — confirm details with the bill’s official record.
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