Testimony to the Ohio Senate

Finance and Financial Institutions Committee

HB 119, LSC Amendment HC-0493

May 30, 2007

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Bryan Brown. I am the Assistant Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies and I am pleased to be here today to urge your support for an amendment to the budget bill, HC-0493, as drafted by LSC.

As you know, the Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies (OACCA) is a statewide association founded in 1973 of 82 private and public agencies that provide a wide array of services to thousands of children and families across Ohio every day of the year. Some examples of these services include:

· Caring for children in foster care experiencing the trauma of child abuse or neglect.

· Finding adoptive families for waiting Ohio children and providing post-adoption support so that new families can grow together.

· Helping children recover from mental illness, substance abuse or juvenile delinquency through intensive residential treatment.

Since 1993, OACCA has been working to correct an inherent problem regarding the education funding for children in residential treatment programs. That is, children served in residential treatment programs may come from all over Ohio but are served by a local school district, a local community school, an education services center, or the residential treatment provider itself within or near the treatment program. The challenge for the residential treatment education services provider is to recover the education funding generated by each child’s previous place of residence at the sending/home school district.

Nearly ten years ago, we worked with the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Youth Services to create in temporary law the Private Treatment Facility Pilot Project to meet the educational needs of youth served in six pilot residential treatment programs. This pilot also included standards and accountability for the provision of education services to the youth being served.

The Ohio State Board of Education has recognized both the existing problem of ensuring that per pupil funding actually FOLLOWS the child to the residential treatment education services provider; and the success of the Pilot Project by endorsing a mechanism that will expand the pilot to all private residential treatment education services providers.

LSC Amendment HC-0493 does just that. It creates a mechanism to use EMIS codes so that education services providers at residential treatment programs can report each pupil being served and receive a prorated per pupil allocation of base-cost formula, base funding supplements, special education weight amounts, and excess special education costs. This change does NOT represent any new state money. It creates a new mechanism for ODE to allocate education dollars to the eligible service providers actually educating children in residential treatment. This mechanism is similar to the one used for community schools. At the same time, it ensures accountability by requiring the same testing and reporting of education outcomes by the residential treatment education services provider as required by local schools.

OACCA has surveyed our residential treatment providers in order to estimate the number of children who might NOT be in any Ohio district’s ADM count. We calculated the occupancy rates and the percentage of children entering residential treatment who were previously enrolled in a public school and we conclude that, at most, there may be 400 or so students who have not been counted in any district’s ADM count. We have worked with the Ohio Department of Education on our survey and analysis and they agree that this is a reasonable projection. Furthermore, ODE assures us that this small number of uncounted children can be absorbed in its current ADM forecast.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to address you about this amendment and your opportunity to include a simple and straightforward solution to the education service and funding needs of our state’s most needy children and youth. I also want to thank the Ohio State Board of Education for their leadership on this issue. I have included a brief synopsis of this amendment and what it does, prepared by LSC. I am happy to answer any of your questions.

SYNOPSIS

Private Residential Treatment Facilities

R.C. 3317.21 to 3317.26; conforming changes in R.C. 3314.08, 3317.029, 3317.0217, 3317.03, and 5727.84

Creates a permanent authorization to require and to fund educational services for children who are assigned to a private residential treatment facility that is operated under contract with the Department of Youth Services or under a license issued by the departments of Job and Family Services, Mental Health, Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services. For each child, the provider of educational services is paid the sum of the per pupil base-cost formula amount, base funding supplements, and any applicable weighted special education funding and excess special education costs. The amount paid to the provider is deducted from the account of the school district legally responsible to pay for educating the child. That district is authorized to count the student in its formula ADM and special education ADM to be credited with funding for the child prior to the deduction.