What's a school district to do when federal mandates arrive without federal money? Send an invoice.

That's the response of local school boards disgruntled with the perpetual gap in special education funding.

At the suggestion of their superintendent, the school boards of Allenstown, Chichester, Deerfield and Epsom have decided to bill the U.S. Department of Education for nearly a quarter of their special education costs from the past five years. The Pembroke board will consider the move at its next meeting.

Board members' qualms stem from the pledge Congress made to fund 40 percent of costs when it mandated special education programming in 1975. Funding has varied since then but has never risen much above the current 17 percent level.

The Education Department is likely to receive similar invoices, because the American Association of School Administrators is encouraging members to draw attention to the funding shortfall by billing the government.

Superintendent Peter Warburton said the campaign should not raise questions about the dedication to special education at SAU 53. It's meant rather to draw attention to the additional burden on districts, he said.

"My concern is we are now saddled with such large special education bills that in small districts lots of our other programming is being jeopardized," he said.

The SAU finance office is compiling past expense reports for filing next month.

The idea of billing the federal government for special education costs originated in Barrington, not far from the SAU 53 schools, according to Mary Kusler, assistant director of advocacy and policy at the school administrators association.

The Barrington School District first sent the government a $605,271 bill for special education costs in the 2000-01 school year.

Mike Clark, then chairman of the school board, said members were tired of drawing fire for the tax raises their budgets incurred. Board members agreed to protest what they considered failure to pay money owed.

"We weren't naive enough to think they had just not thought of the idea and would sit down and write every school district in the nation a check," Clark said.

Invoices from Barrington later included back expenses and interest. (The district never received a check, though Sen. Judd Gregg did send a letter.)

Warburton said he hopes the campaigns of enough school districts will prompt the government to increase funding. At the Deerfield School Board, Donald Gorman calls it a "political gambit" but expects to see money. If the government doesn't pay, he wants to sue.

"They said they were going to pay for it," he said. "Put the money on the table, boys."

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