§ 300.204 Exception to maintenance of effort.

Plain English summary

This section establishes specific exceptions that allow an LEA to reduce its special education expenditures below the prior fiscal year's level, notwithstanding the general maintenance of effort requirement in § 300.203(b). Permissible reasons for reduction include personnel departures, decreased enrollment of children with disabilities, termination of an exceptionally costly program for a specific child, end of long-term purchase expenditures, or cost assumption by the SEA's high cost fund. These exceptions are narrowly defined and each must be attributable to one of the enumerated circumstances.

Key requirements

• An LEA may reduce expenditures below the preceding fiscal year's level only if the reduction is attributable to one of the enumerated exceptions.
• The voluntary departure, by retirement or otherwise, or departure for just cause, of special education or related services personnel.
• A decrease in the enrollment of children with disabilities.
• The termination of the obligation of the agency, consistent with this part, to provide a program of special education to a particular child with a disability that is an exceptionally costly program, as determined by the SEA, because the child has left the jurisdiction of the agency, has reached the age at which the obligation to provide FAPE has terminated, or no longer needs the program of special education.
• The termination of costly expenditures for long-term purchases, such as the acquisition of equipment or the construction of school facilities.
• The assumption of cost by the high cost fund operated by the SEA under § 300.704(c).

Affected parties

• Local Educational Agencies (LEAs)
• State Educational Agencies (SEAs)
• Children with disabilities
• Special education personnel
• Related services personnel

Official source

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-34/part-300/section-300.204