CG v. Pa. Dep't of Educ.

Decision Date23 August 2012
Docket NumberCivil Action No. 1:06–CV–1523.
Citation888 F.Supp.2d 534
PartiesCG, et al., Plaintiffs v. The Commonwealth of PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION and Gerald Zahorchak, Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Evalynn B. Welling, Kevin L. Quisenberry, Community Justice Project, Pittsburgh, PA, for Plaintiffs.

Michael L. Harvey, Office of Attorney General, Sean A. Kirkpatrick, Office of Attorney General of the Commonwealth of PA, Harrisburg, PA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM

YVETTE KANE, Chief Judge.

The Court conducted a bench trial in the above captioned matter. The record is now closed, and the Court is prepared to render its judgment. This memorandum constitutes the Court's findings of fact and conclusions of law made pursuant to Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a)(1).

I. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs commenced this action in this Court on August 4, 2006, naming the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Education and its Secretary, Gerald Zahorchak, as Defendants. (Doc. No. 1.) Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on September 1, 2006 alleging violations of: (1) the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.; (2) Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504), 29 U.S.C. § 794; (3) Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.; (4) the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 (“EEOA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq.; and (5) the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Const. amend. XIV. (Doc. No. 4.) Defendants filed a motion to dismiss, which the Court denied on February 25, 2008, 547 F.Supp.2d 422 (M.D.Pa.2008). (Doc. No. 31.) On November 3, 2008, 2008 WL 4820474, the Court reconsidered the motion to dismiss and granted the motion as to Plaintiff G.J., concluding that Plaintiff G.J.'s claims must fail for lack of standing. (Doc. No. 55.) On September 29, 2009, 2009 WL 3182599, the Court certified two classes in this matter. (Doc. No. 133.) The first class consists of special-needs students attending Pennsylvania school districts that have a seventeen percent or higher enrolled population of special-needs students and a market/value personal income (“MV/PI”) ratio of .65 or greater. The second class consists of Limited English Proficiency (“LEP”) special-needs students attending schools with a ten percent or greater population of LEP students.1

On January 28, 2011, 2011 WL 318289, the Court granted in part and denied in part Defendants' motion for summary judgment and denied Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. (Doc. No. 190.) The Court held that insofar as Plaintiffs were pursuing relief against Defendant Zahorchak in his individual capacity, those claims were barred by the ADA and Section 504. In addition, the Court held that Plaintiffs' due process claim failed as a matter of law.

Trial in this matter was originally scheduled to commence on March 21, 2011. (Doc. No. 189.) However, during the pretrial conference, held on March 2, 2011, the Court continued trial and reopened discovery for the purpose of allowing Defendants to conduct depositions of some thirteen witnesses who were disclosed to Defendants for the first time in Plaintiffs' pretrial memorandum. (Doc. No. 206.) Following the close of the supplementary discovery period, the Court conducted a bench trial in the above captioned matter over the course of seven days between September 14, 2011, and September 23, 2011. The parties submitted amended proposed findings of law and conclusions of fact on January 23, 2012. (Doc. Nos. 276, 277.)

II. FINDINGS OF FACT

As was outlined briefly above, the instant matter is a class action suit challenging 24 P.S. § 25–2509.5, the Pennsylvania statute which apportions special education funding. Specifically, the classes of special education students allege that the funding formula results in an inequitable distribution of special education funds resulting in systemic violations of the IDEA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the ADA, and EEOA. The following constitutes this Court's findings of fact.2

A. Challenged Funding Formula

1. In accordance with the IDEA, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provides annual supplemental special education funding to school districts in the Commonwealth via a statutory subsidy. 24 P.S. § 25–2509.5.

2. During the 20092010 school year, this supplemental special education funding totaled approximately $1 billion. (Tr. at 745:2–5; Def. Ex. 91 cell 503N.)

3. In the 20002001 school year, the Commonwealth began implementing a “base/base supplement” formula to appropriate the supplemental special education funding. 24 P.S. § 25–2509.5(bb)(zz).

4. The Pennsylvania supplemental special education funding formula consists of four parts: (1) a base amount; (2) a base supplement; (3) an inflation index supplement; and (4) a minimum percentage funding increase. See generally24 P.S. § 25–2509.5(mm)(zz).

5. The base amount is equal to the total amount received by the school district in the prior school year pursuant to the supplemental special education funding formula. See, e.g.,24 P.S. § 25–2509.5(zz)(1).

6. The base supplement amount is calculated by: (1) multiplying the district's MV/PI ratio by sixteen percent—where sixteen percent represents the average enrollment of special education students across the Commonwealth—of the school district's average daily membership for the prior school year; (2) multiplying the resulting product by the Commonwealth's total available supplemental funding; and (3) dividing that product by the sum of the products of the MV/PI ratio multiplied by sixteen percent of the average daily membership of all school districts for the prior school year. See, e.g.,24 P.S. § 25–2509.5(zz)(2).

7. The Commonwealth also provides a special education contingency fund, which is used to provide additional support to school districts that have experienced higher levels of need in a given school year. (Tr. at 743:19–744:7.)

8. School districts must request contingency funds. (Tr. at 744:8–11.)

9. The maximum contingency fund available to each district in the past has always been $150,000. (Tr. at 255:10–25.)

10. The Commonwealth's special education subsidy does not include a variable factoring the cost of removing language barriers for special-needs LEP students. 24 P.S. § 25–2509.5.

11. The Commonwealth's special education subsidy comprises on average approximately 4.8 percent of the total revenue of school districts in the class and 4.0 percent of the total revenue of all school districts. (Def. Ex. 23; Tr. at 904:1–5.)

12. As explained by Ralph Girolamo, a school district's special education budget is comprised primarily of the district's basic education funding and local tax effort; the Commonwealth's special education subsidy serves to supplement the special education funds derived from each district's general funds. (Tr. at 745:10–24.)

13. There is no state funding specifically earmarked for schools to provide extended school year programming. (Pl. Ex. 135 at 3.)

14. The Commonwealth does not collect data on the number of students receiving extended school year services. (Pl. Ex. 139 at 4.)

1. Assumed Special Needs Population Component

15. The Commonwealth's special education funding formula assumes that sixteen percent of each school district's average daily membership is a special education student. (Tr. at 533:9–23.)

16. The majority of children in the Commonwealth are concentrated in districts with approximately fifteen percent of children classified as having disabilities. (Tr. at 542:21–543:2.)

17. The disability rates in school districts ranges from below ten percent up to above twenty-five percent. (Tr. at 543:2–5.)

18. The geographic distribution of children with disabilities is not uniform. (Pl. Ex. 5.)

2. MV/PI Component

19. The MV/PI ratio is a calculation used to measure the relative fiscal capacity of a school district to support and maintain its programming. (Tr. at 740:6:12.)

20. A high MV/PI ratio indicates a school with less capacity to support itself, whereas a low MV/PI ratio indicates a school is more self sufficient. (Tr. at 742:4–11.)

21. The MV/PI ratio is a statutory formula combining the market value aid ratio and the personal income aid ratio. 24 P.S. § 25–2501(14.1).

22. The MV/PI ratio for each school district is calculated annually. (Tr. at 740:13–15.)

23. The MV/PI ratio is designed to provide poorer districts with a greater share of state funding than the share received by richer districts. (Tr. at 741:2–11.)

24. Over time, the MV/PI ratio has the effect of allocating an increasingly greater share of funding to school districts with high MV/PI ratios because the base funding level is equal to the total prior year's funding level; as a result, the total special education funding includes each prior year's supplement, which is adjusted for the MV/PI ratio, in addition to the current year's supplement, which is adjusted for the MV/PI ratio. (Tr. at 741:14–743:2.)

25. Special education funding per special education pupil is not closely related to a school district's MV/PI ratio. (Tr. at 576:19–23.)

26. Although the special education funding formula includes an MV/PI component, that component makes up too small a share of the overall formula to overcome the district's difficulty in raising funding from its local tax base. (Tr. at 576:19–23.)

C. Adequacy of Funding

27. Plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Bruce Baker evaluated the effect of the Commonwealth's special education funding formula on school districts.

28. Dr. Baker did not examine individual school budgets. (Tr. at 680:4–10.)

29. Dr. Baker did not consider the manner in which individual schools allocated resources in his evaluation. (Tr. at 680:11–15.)

30. Dr. Baker did not consider capital expenditures or expenditures incurred on bond and debt funds. (Tr. at 680:16–19.)

31. Dr. Baker did not conduct a cost efficiency...

To continue reading

Request your trial
7 cases
  • T.R. v. Sch. Dist. of Phila.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania
    • November 30, 2016
    ...these barriers; and (3) a resulting impediment to students' equal participation in instructional program." CG v. Pa. Dep't of Educ. , 888 F.Supp.2d 534, 575 (M.D. Pa. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted).Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, "[n]o person in the United States shall, on......
  • Issa v. Sch. Dist. of Lancaster
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit
    • January 30, 2017
    ...Issa, 2016 WL 4493202, at *5. It relied on a Middle District of Pennsylvania decision to so hold. Id. (citing CG v. Pa. Dep't of Educ., 888 F.Supp.2d 534, 575 (M.D. Pa. 2012) ). We affirmed judgment in CG but had no occasion to reach the EEOA claims at issue there. CG v. Pa. Dep't of Educ.,......
  • Helicos Biosciences Corp. v. Illumina, Inc.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Delaware
    • August 28, 2012
  • H.D. v. Cent. Bucks Sch. Dist.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania
    • September 28, 2012
    ...on the theory of a denial of free appropriate public education are also dismissed.”); CG v. Penn. Dep't of Educ., 888 F.Supp.2d 534, 574, No. 06–1523, 2012 WL 3639063, at *32 (M.D.Pa. Aug. 23, 2012) (dismissing section 504 claim based on same allegations underlying an IDEA claim which had f......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT