Sec. 4. Effective date. Those sections of this Act that repeal the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 20-A, section 15603, subsection 28-A and repeal and replace Title 20-A, section 15612, subsection 12-A take effect July 1, 2003.

Emergency clause. In view of the emergency cited in the preamble, this Act takes effect when approved.

SUMMARY

This bill directs the Department of Education to use an enrollment-driven method to adjust the amount of general purpose aid subsidy that a school administrative unit would receive for the costs of providing a transitional instruction program for students of limited proficiency in English who are placed in a transitional instruction program using English as a 2nd language or bilingual techniques approved by the Commissioner of Education. The bill proposes to accomplish the following.

1. Beginning in fiscal year 2003-04, a school administrative unit would receive an adjustment to its state subsidy on a per capita basis for each student of limited proficiency in English placed in an approved transitional instruction program. State payments to school administrative units must be made during the year of allocation as a single payment.

2. The adjustment would be calculated using a weighted average student count with a 3-tiered differential weighting scheme based on the number of students placed in an approved transitional instruction program in the unit and the averaging of the 2 most recent student census counts.

3. The funds disbursed for this adjustment are limited to the amount appropriated by the Legislature for this purpose and payments to units must be prorated if the amount appropriated is insufficient to make full payments to all units. If additional appropriations are not provided for this disbursement, the Department of Education may not redistribute existing appropriations for general purpose aid to local schools for this adjustment.

4. The Commissioner of Education is directed to revise the forms provided to school administrative units and private schools so that the annual student counts required each school year can include the count of all students placed in an approved