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NH State Ordered to Return Grant;
Special Education Money Diverted
Daniel Barrick, Concord Monitor, October 14. 2005
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The federal
government has ordered New Hampshire's Department of Education
to repay a nearly $500,000 grant that was intended for disabled
students but was spent by the state on training programs for
teachers.
The state returned about half of that money in July. Education
Commissioner Lyonel Tracy has asked the federal government to
take the rest out of future grants for disabled students. In a
letter to federal officials, Tracy said that payment method
would help him "avoid the need for legislative approval."
"As you can imagine, we have not budgeted for this debt," Tracy
wrote July 11.
The money under question was intended to help develop programs
or purchase equipment for disabled students. The money was
intended to go directly to school districts.
Officials in New Hampshire's Department of Education, however,
used the money to pay for teacher training, including an
"aggressive professional development program" that included a
17-day training session. In a letter to federal education
officials, Virginia Irwin, of the state department, explained
that the sessions were needed to prepare teachers for new
testing requirements imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act and
an "alternative assessment" test for students with emotional
disabilities.
"We believe that we used these funds in both the spirit and the
letter of the law,"Irwin wrote in a Dec. 27 letter.
Federal officials disagreed. In May, Tracy was ordered to return
the full $441,000 grant since, instead of being sent to
individual school districts, the money was "used by the state to
meet a state goal."
Tracy became state education commissioner in March, after the
state had already spent the disabilities grant. Tracy did not
return a phone call for comment last night.
The issue was brought to the attention of federal officials by
Richard Cohen, executive director of the Disabilities Rights
Center, a New Hampshire advocacy group. Cohen said yesterday
that he was glad state education officials were being held
accountable for misdirecting federal money. But he lamented that
the state was giving up future disabilities grants to pay back
the debt.
"This money was diverted from special education at the local
level in the first place, so why are they going to refuse more
money to pay the debt”, Cohen said. "It sounds like a double
whammy in some regards."
Rep. Fred King, chairman of the Legislative Fiscal Committee,
which must approve money transfers, said he did not know about
the federal payback order. He said he expects to learn more at
the committee's meeting next week.
"If they've had to pay back some money, we would want to know
where that money came from, obviously," King said.
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