BEVERLY — The schools have already overspent their contingency budget for special education students this year, placing the entire school budget in a precarious position, City Council and School Committee members were told last night.
Sixteen students that the district had not planned on receiving special education services now require those services, at a cost of $631,459, said Debra O'Connor, special education services administrator.
"That's huge. I've never seen this before," O'Connor told a joint meeting of the City Council and School Committee at Hannah Elementary School. "We've overspent the contingency budget by about $200,000. When it's November and I come up with numbers like this, it makes me nervous."
School Committee President Annemarie Cesa said the school district has "frozen our budget" to compensate for the unexpected special education costs.
"There's no place left for us to go," Cesa said. "Should this trend continue over the school year, we are in trouble."
O'Connor said the unplanned special costs came about for a variety of reasons, including five students who moved into the district and two others who won legal challenges that forced the schools to provide special education services.
O'Connor revealed the extra costs during a presentation on the overall impact of special education on the school budget. Special education costs Beverly about $8 million per year, including more than $1 million for transportation costs, O'Connor said.
She said about 20 percent of Beverly students receive special education services, ranging from less expensive in-district services to out-of-district tuition that can run as high as $46,000 for one student.
Just this week, O'Connor said, four students required psychiatric hospitalization. Beverly is required to pay tutors by the hour to teach the students in the hospital.
O'Connor said schools are required by law to pay for special education services for students from ages 3 to 22 who qualify. The number of special education preschool students has tripled in the last 10 years, she said.
Superintendent Marie Galinski said special education needs are increasing in part because medical advances have allowed more developmentally disabled children to survive at birth, and "those health issues are being passed on to the schools once they're 3 years old."
Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or pleighton@salemnews.com.
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