Why didn Chapter 797 specifically link state funding to the eight activities?
During the course of the COSM’s debate, we have heard some suggest that state special education funds not be counted as a mandate offset because the funds were not explicitly appropriated to cover the cost of the eight state-required activities. (Instead, the state gave local education agencies broad flexibility over the use of the funds.) In reviewing this suggestion that unrestricted state subventions not count as mandate offsets, we would like to offer our perspective as the Legislature’s chief fiscal advisor. The Legislature enacted and funded the MPSE as a program. Similarly, the claimants challenged the MPSE as a program. It was only last year–after extensive work by the COSM–that the distinction between the measure’s state-required versus federally-required elements has been documented. While the Legislature was aware in 1980 that Chapter 797 imposed a state mandate, it would have been impossible at that time to earmark special education funding with this level of precision.(5
