When President Gerald Ford signed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975, he didn’t conceal his reservations: “Unfortunately, this bill promises more than the federal government can deliver.”

The feds promised to cover up to 40% of the costs of providing free, appropriate public education to every child with a disability. Their lips to God’s ears. In 1990, the feds assumed 11.49% of Montana’s IDEA costs. The state shouldered the lion’s share, (81.66%), leaving local districts with the remaining 7.09%.

Over time, the lion became a lamb. By 2022, our state’s share of total special education funding had shrunk to 26.55%. The feds ponied up 21.23%. That left local districts with a whopping 52.22% of the cost. And those costs had more than quadrupled, increasing from $40.9 million in 1990 to $168.4 million by 2022.

You wonder why your school board comes back year after year with mill levy requests? Part of the reason is that state and federal laws require public schools to meet widely varying and sometimes wildly expensive special education needs, costs notwithstanding. To meet their legal (and moral) obligation to these students without levy requests, local schools must raid the general fund, designed to meet the needs of all students.

When voters say NO to a mill levy request (and with the local impacts of the last legislative session, such requests have a snowball’s chance in hell), school districts have no choice but to cut classes that aren’t required and overcrowd classes that are. Who loses? Every. Single. Kid.

Given this history, last session’s HB 393, establishing “special education savings accounts” that divert state and local funds to parents who decline publicly provided special education for their child, is truly unconscionable.

Missoulian: Mary Sheehy Moe: HB 393 — A mad, mad, mad, mad bill