Report Title:

SPECIAL ED

THE SENATE

S.C.R. NO.

65

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2001

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 
   


SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

requesting the United States Congress to appropriate funds for forty per cent of special education and related services for children with disabilities.

 

 

WHEREAS, under Title 20, section 1411(a) of the United States Code, the maximum amount of federal funds that a state may receive for special education and related services is the number of children with disabilities in the State who are receiving special education and related services multiplied by forty per cent of the average per-pupil expenditure in public elementary and secondary schools in the United States; and

WHEREAS, since the enactment of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and its subsequent amendments, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, Congress has appropriated funds for a maximum of ten per cent of special education and related services for children with disabilities when federal law authorizes the appropriation of up to forty per cent; and

WHEREAS, the Hawaii Department of Education received approximately $23,500,000 in federal funds during fiscal year 1999-2000 for what was then referred to as "education of the handicapped". If this figure represented an appropriation of funds for ten per cent of special education and related services for children with disabilities, then an appropriation of forty per cent would have equaled $94,000,000; and

WHEREAS, the difference between an appropriation of forty per cent and an appropriation of ten per cent for "education of the handicapped" would amount to $70,500,000 just for the Department of Education. If the number of students receiving special education and related services equaled 22,000 during fiscal year 1999-2000, then the difference would have amounted to approximately $3,200 per student; and

WHEREAS, the State of Hawaii, through the Felix consent decree, is being compelled by the federal district court to make up for more than twenty years of insufficient funding for special education and related services—funding that should have been borne substantially by Congress, which enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990; and

WHEREAS, if Congress is going to mandate new programs or increase the level of service under existing programs for children with disabilities, and if it is going to give the federal courts unfettered power to enforce these mandates through the imposition of fines and the appointment of masters, then Congress should provide sufficient funding for special education and related services; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2001, the House of Representatives concurring, that the United States Congress is requested to appropriate funds for forty per cent of special education and related services for children with disabilities; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate, the Vice-President of the United States, and the members of Hawaii's congressional delegation.

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

_____________________________