School Spending Nearly Double

Published: Thursday, October 22, 2009

By RONALD DEROSA
Register Citizen Staff

TORRINGTON – Since 2004, the Torrington school district has nearly doubled what it spends to send students out of the district for special education, a report released Wednesday states.

Michael Neiman and Dominic Vita of Springfield-based Futures HealthCore released a three-month study during the Board of Education meeting on Wednesday. The results addressed special education costs, on sending students out of the 4,700 school district for their education.

The board hired the firm over the summer to conduct the study, as a way to find out what the district was spending to send students out.

While the results paint a picture of the school system’s spending for students sent out, it does little to offer specific solutions to the matter. According to the report, Torrington schools spent 7 percent of its $61,663,368 operating budgeting in 2008 on special education students being sent out of the district. That figure is up from 5 percent in 2004. In 2004, the district spent $2.3 million for students to be sent out. That expenditure nearly doubled, rising 92 percent to $4,130,000. Dividing that total by the 104 students sent out, the average tuition cost is $42,432.69.

The study also specifies an “apples to apples” comparison, outlining the cost spent on out-of-district students with other districts. It does this by dividing the total number of Torrington special education students by the actual out-of-district spending budget.

In that chart, the district is ranked 10th out of 16 districts in its District Reference Group, with 16th district having the highest expenditure. In 2008, Torrington’s total out-of-district spending, $4,413,000, divided by the total 657 special education students amounts to $6,716 per student.

In 2004, Torrington had 719 students in special education. Dividing this by the out-of-district budget of $2.3 million, the total spending was $3,198.89 per student. The actual number of students sent out in 2004 was not stated in the report.

Forty of the schools’ students sent out are done so through state placements such as juvenile courts, Vita said. The district cannot do anything to bring these students back, he noted.

But as for the remaining 64 students, Vita and Neiman brought forth some options. A few include a day or evening alternative program or working with other area organizations.

In the conclusion, the report states the district can provide out-of-district programs in its own schools for other area districts. This could further defray the costs of staff, facilities and materials, the report states.

Ronald DeRosa can be reached by e-mail at torrington@registercitizen.com.