The House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill Thursday increasing regulation and oversight of private special education providers while also providing funds to encourage districts to develop their own in-house programs. 

The bill, which sought to address steeply rising costs of special education, includes $30 million each year for 2026 and 2027 for a new “special education expansion grant” for school districts based on the amount they receive through the state’s Education Cost Sharing formula. The $30 million for 2026 will be added to $221 million already in the budget for special education that year. 

The grant may be used either for expanding a district’s on-site special education services, or expanding “tier two” interventions in math and reading — academic or behavioral help that is offered in advance to special education. 

“We can all say that we have seen a large number of students that have gone through our school systems, that are not able to receive the supports that they need,” said Rep. Maryam Khan, D-Windsor, co-chair of the legislature’s Select Committee on Special Education. “Addressing this gap especially of providing special education dollars for districts to increase their capacity for serving students with special needs — it was essential in this legislation.” 

Khan introduced the legislation, H.B. 5001, on the House floor and spoke at length in its favor Thursday evening before representatives voted unanimously to support it. The bill will now go to the Senate for a vote.

Rep. Tammy Nuccio, R-Tolland, said she believed investing in these “tier two” supports would ultimately lower districts’ special education costs, because fewer children would need special education services.

“If we can catch kids from the Pre-K through 3, we can kind of stop that train. We can give them the help that they need when they’re younger,” said Nuccio. 

Many school districts pay private providers to educate students with special needs. Khan said the additional state funding should make it possible for districts to offer more of that support directly. “We want districts to be able to expand their services in-house and provide what they can in their school buildings as much as possible,” Rep. Maryam Khan, D-Windsor, said during a press conference on Thursday. 

The bill also raises the age by which a child can be diagnosed with a developmental delay from age 5 to age 8. Khan said developmental delays often go undiagnosed before the age of five, meaning many children go without needed services.

A large part of the bill seeks to expand regulation of private special education providers. It requires the State Department of Education to set a rate schedule — to be reviewed every two years — limiting how much providers can charge for services, including speech, behavioral and occupational therapies. It also prohibits private special education institutions from raising rates in the middle of the school year. 

Rep. Tina Courpas, R-Greenwich, said Republicans were in support of the rate setting for private providers, but said it was a “complicated thing” that they wanted to make sure was correct. “ We also want to get it right so that we don’t drive any provider to special ed services out of Connecticut’s market. We want it to be a robust market,” she said. 

Rep. Amy Romano, R-Shelton, said she was conflicted about the idea of rate setting. While she agreed that the high cost of special education needed to be addressed, she was worried that private programs might respond by increasing class sizes, and that it could mean a loss of teachers and providers. 

Khan said the State Department of Education was already regulating rates for four residential programs in Connecticut. “ They’ve done it for many years and we’ve never had any concerns from those four programs, and they’ve done that effectively and those programs have thrived,” she said. 

Khan also said that other states like New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts set rates for private providers. And she said the state legislature would have final approval over the rates that would be set. 

The bill also calls for the State Department of Education to conduct random surprise visits at private special education institutions. If the department identifies problems, the school would have 30 days to correct the problems or be subject to a fine. It also requires school districts to written contracts with providers, and it adds reporting requirements for the private providers. 

Rep. Lezlye Zupkus, R-Prospect, said she was concerned about the State Department of Education’s ability to conduct the audits, since the state has 113 approved special education programs. 

Khan said the bill included $5 million to assist the department by providing several additional staff members as recommended by the State Department of Education.

The department declined to comment for this story.

Growing needs

Andy Feinstein, a special education attorney and a co-chair of the state’s Task Force to Study Special Education Services and Funding, said earlier this year that the cost of special education outplacements to private providers had “skyrocketed.” From 2023 to 2024, excess costs for special education rose 25%, and they’re estimated to have risen an additional 11% in 2025. 

The number of children in special education has also increased. In 2025, more than 18% of students across the state have special education needs. 

“We have a situation where the costs are going up and we want to and need to fulfill these children’s needs, and yet the burdens that are being put on the school districts to fund those is becoming untenable,” Courpas told lawmakers on Thursday. 

In March, the legislature voted to send $40 million in emergency funding to the local school districts for the current school year.

Governor Ned Lamont had proposed $40 million in special education funding for districts in 2027, and the legislature’s budget committee added $40 million in 2026 as well. 

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, told reporters on Thursday that the bill, while “not transformative” was “ moving the ball down the field in the right direction.” 

Under the legislation, a commission already tasked with studying education funding would take up several additional topics, including studying whether the state has enough programs to meet current demand, how lower-level interventions are being used in school districts, the possibility of a “peer review” allowing districts to model one another’s programs and respite care. 

It is also charged with offering recommendations on the best way to measure whether the special education programs in districts were meeting performance standards. 

Courpas said Republicans were particularly proud of the measurements around student performance that they’d placed in the bill. 

“ To us, the most important question is, are we serving the kids of Connecticut? Are we doing well by them? Are we providing effective special ed services?” she said. 

And the bill also prescribes an analysis into the workload of special education workers in the state — a response, Khan said, to reports she’d heard about teachers facing increased paperwork and high rates of burnout. She noted that half of special education teachers left the education field within five years. 

“We felt that it would properly address the workload that is put on special education staff so that we can retain our staff,” said Khan.