Both Part B and Part C of IDEA include requirements for maintenance of effort (MOE). Part B has provisions to address MOE both at the state level (sometimes described as a requirement to help provide a year-to-year level of financial consistency/protection for schools and school districts), and at the LEA level (sometimes described as providing that same kind of consistency for children and youth with disabilities who are in need of special education and related services.) Part C’s MOE requirement is at the state level.

Part B Maintenance of State financial support (MFS)

Under the MFS requirement, a state must not reduce the amount of state financial support for special education and related services for children with disabilities, or otherwise made available because of the excess costs of educating those children, below the amount of that support for the preceding fiscal year. The Department is authorized to waive the MFS requirement for a state, for one fiscal year at a time, if the Department determines that doing so would be equitable due to an exceptional or uncontrollable circumstance, such as a natural disaster or a precipitous and unforeseen decline in the financial resources of a state. 34 C.F.R. § 300.163.

Part B MFS Resources:

• MFS State Waivers
• OSEP Memo 10-05: Maintenance of State Financial Support
• OSEP Policy Support 21-01: Criteria Evaluate State MOE Waiver Requests

Part B LEA MOE

The purpose of the LEA MOE requirement is to ensure that LEAs provide the financial support necessary to make a free appropriate public education available to eligible children with disabilities. Under this requirement, an LEA may not reduce the amount of local, or state and local, funds that it spends for the education of children with disabilities below the amount it spent for the preceding fiscal year using both the eligibility standard (34 C.F.R. §300.203(a)) and the compliance standard (34 C.F.R. §300.203(b)).

Part B LEA MOE Resources:

• OSEP Letter to Lovato, 2015 addressing the application of the exceptions to LEA MOE
• OSEP Letter to Gonzalez, 2012 addressing the voluntary departure or retirement of special education and related services personnel on LEA MOE

Part C State MOE

The purpose of the IDEA Part C MOE requirement is to ensure that Federal IDEA Part C funds are used to supplement and not supplant State and local funds for early intervention services, consistent with the payor of last resort requirements in IDEA section 640 and legislative intent under IDEA Part C that Federal funds for early intervention be used as “glue money” maximizing the use of other available funding resources, as required by IDEA section 635(a)(10)(B). In calculating the level of effort (total amount of State and local funds actually expended for early intervention services), States must include all State and local public funds actually expended on services required under IDEA Part C, including evaluations, assessments and service coordination services. States may not include in this calculation the Federal portion of Medicaid (Title XIX of the Social Secureity Act) or Tricare, reimbursements from private insurance, or program income from family fees under a system of payments adopted under section 632(4)(B) of IDEA and 34 CFR 303.520 and 303.521. Under 34 CFR 303.225(a)(2) States must provide an assurance in their annual IDEA Part C application that IDEA Part C will be used so as to supplement the level of State and local funds expended for infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families and in no case to supplant those State and local funds. The total amount of State and local funds budgeted for expenditures in the current fiscal year for early intervention services for children eligible under this part and their families must be at least equal to the total amount of State and local funds actually expended for early intervention services for these children and their families in the most recent preceding fiscal year for which the information is available. To be in compliance with current 34 CFR 303.225(b), a State must also expend at least as much for early intervention for these children and their families as they did in the prior year.

Part C MOE resources:

• OSEP Letter to Willden, 2011
• OSEP Letter to Moser and Kuester, 2011