Walsh Special Ed Bill Vetoed ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - Congressman Jim Walsh says he's trying to keep more special education funding in a massive federal spending bill that's been vetoed by President Bush.

The House and the Senate both voted to boost federal aid to school districts for their federally-mandated special education programs by four percent. That would have added 509-million dollars to the federal budget, and raised the federal share of special education costs to almost 18 percent.

Congressman Walsh says the president vetoed the spending bill that carried his special ed funding, and the override attempt fell short by four votes.

Walsh says the federal government promised to pay 40 percent of the special education costs when it mandated the program onto local school districts, but it's never done better than 19 percent and the amount has dropped in recent years. He says he's strongly resisting any move to strip his amendment out of the bill in the negotiations.

The congressman says the government should work its way gradually up to that 40 percent commitment so it's not putting an unfair burden on local taxpayers.

Walsh spoke to staff and students at Webster-Schroeder High School, where Webster School Superintendent Adele Bovard said her district pays 20-million dollars a year to educate special ed students. The district gets only 1-point-7 million of that back from the federal government. A 40 percent share as originally promised by the government would be about 8-million dollars.

The Walsh bill would have spent 12-point-three billion dollars on special education reimbursements nationwide next year. Walsh says you'd have to double that amount to more than 24 billion to come up to the 40 percent level.
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