March 9, 2021- Legislative Committee Update

 IAASE LEGISLATIVE UPDATE - FILING WITNESS SLIPS

This year’s legislative session in Illinois is extremely active and the IAASE legislative committee meets weekly with our government relations specialist, Shannon Miller Bellini, to review bills that impact our students and our work.  

This week, there are two important bills of interest to IAASE members being heard in the Senate Education Committee.  SB 0517 is an IAASE initiative sponsored by Meg Loughran Cappel.  For many years we have advocated for an equalized funding system in Illinois that reflects that districts with students with significant needs and associated high costs receive equalized reimbursement whether the students are placed in public school settings or private placements.  Although this has been a legislative priority for IAASE for well over a decade, the disparity continues. We have submitted several legislative proposals, making steady advancements in recent years and we have learned much about strategy from our experiences. This year, we decided to introduce a bill that takes an important step forward into opening up the use of the line item on the state budget that historically has been solely for private tuition reimbursement.  SB 0517 equalizes reimbursement for districts for students placed in either a public day or private day school and reflects the follow-up commitment from the General Assembly after Evidence-Based funding became law several years ago. While there are additional steps to take in the process of moving to a fully placement neutral system, we believe that it is a reasonable step towards that goal.   

The second bill is one that IAASE opposes.  SB0531 changes the school code to provide that a student whose 22nd birthday occurs during the school year is eligible for special education services through the end of the regular school term (rather than being eligible for services only until the day before his or her 22nd birthday).  While we agree that more services should be available for young adults with disabilities we do not believe that extending services past the 22nd birthday is the solution and we certainly don’t think this should be mandated without funding.  

One way to support the work of the legislative committee is to file witness slips for committee hearings representing your respective district or special education cooperative. The Senate Education Committee meets on March 9th at 1:00 pm.  You can click here to see the agenda and file a witness slip on behalf of your district/cooperative. It’s a great way to make your voice heard.  If it’s your first time, follow this handy guide for instructions. 

The legislative committee is made up of the elected officers, plus representatives from each of our regions.  Please feel free to contact us if we can be of service to you.

Judy Hackett, Co-chair jhackett@nsseo.org

Melissa Taylor, Co-chair mtaylor@bths201.org