The proposed bill amends the Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska to enhance the enrollment option program and special education services. It establishes specific capacity standards for accepting or rejecting applications from students, particularly those with individualized education programs (IEPs), ensuring that the number of denied applications for IEP students does not exceed sixteen percent of total denials in a school year. Additionally, school districts are required to inform parents about alternative school options if their application is rejected due to capacity constraints. The bill also expands the authorized uses of the Education Future Fund to include funding for education and support services for IEP students accepted as option students, and introduces a reimbursement mechanism for school districts facing extraordinary costs for special education services.

Moreover, the bill revises the reimbursement process for special education and support services, mandating that the department reimburse each school district eighty percent of the total allowable excess costs in the following school fiscal year, with specific provisions for educational cooperatives. It outlines a payment schedule of at least seven payments per school year and details how to handle insufficient funds for reimbursements. New provisions require that amounts received under the Extraordinary Increase in Special Education Expenditures Act be deducted from reimbursement calculations and transferred to the Education Future Fund. The bill also includes the insertion of new subsections (7) and (8) while deleting the previous subsection (7), and mandates annual reporting on total allowable excess costs and reimbursements for special education programs.

Statutes affected:
Introduced: 79-238, 79-239, 79-246, 79-1021, 79-1142