256.25A  Therapeutic classroom — claims.
  1.  A school district may submit claims to the department for the costs of providing therapeutic classroom services and transportation services in accordance with this section.
  a.  (1)  If the general assembly appropriates moneys for purposes of transportation claims reimbursement in accordance with this paragraph “a”, a school district may submit a claim for reimbursement for transportation services for students who are enrolled in the school district or in an accredited nonpublic school located within the boundaries of the school district, who have not been assigned a weighting under section 256B.9, but who are assigned to a therapeutic classroom that is located more than thirty miles from the school designated for attendance or accredited nonpublic school and is operated by another school district or accredited nonpublic school under an agreement between the school districts or between a school district and an accredited nonpublic school.
  (2)  Claims for transportation reimbursement shall be made to the department by the school district providing transportation during a school year pursuant to subparagraph (1). Claims submitted under this paragraph “a” shall be on a form prescribed by the department, and the claim shall include the number of eligible pupils transported, the number of days each pupil was transported, and a listing of the actual costs incurred. On or before December 1, 2023, the director of the department shall review the data collected through the claims process and shall prepare and submit to the general assembly a report containing an analysis of the efficacy of claims reimbursement in accordance with this section and recommendations for changes as appropriate.
  b.  (1)  For each fiscal year beginning on or after July 1, 2022, there is appropriated from the general fund of the state to the department an amount necessary to pay all approved claims submitted under this paragraph “b”.
  (2)  A school district that provides a therapeutic classroom to students enrolled in a school district or an accredited nonpublic school may submit claims to the department for students assigned to such a classroom during the preceding school budget year who are not assigned a weighting under section 256B.9, subsection 1, paragraph “b”, “c”, or “d”, and for whom behavioral intervention plans have been implemented. 
  (3)  The amount of the claim shall be equal to the product of the following amounts:
  (a)  The product of one and five-tenths multiplied by the regular program district cost per pupil for the budget year during which the students identified under subparagraph (2) were assigned to the therapeutic classroom.
  (b)  The quotient of the total number of days the students identified under subparagraph (2) were served in a therapeutic classroom divided by the maximum number of school days in the school district’s calendar.
  (4)  Using end-of-year data submitted by each school district through student-level data collection, the department shall make claim forms available to each eligible school district containing the available data.
  2.  Nonpublic school students assigned to a therapeutic classroom under subsection 1, paragraph “b”, shall be enrolled in a school district as shared-time pupils under section 257.6, subsection 1, paragraph “a”, subparagraph (7), in order for the school district to submit a claim for reimbursement for services provided to such students under subsection 1, paragraph “b”. 
  3.  The department shall prorate the amount of claims reimbursement under subsection 1, paragraph “a”, if the amount of reimbursement claimed for all school districts under subsection 1, paragraph “a”, exceeds the amount appropriated by the general assembly for such purpose plus any available remaining balances from prior fiscal years.
  4.  The costs of providing transportation to nonpublic school pupils as provided in this section shall not be included in the computation of district cost under chapter 257, but shall be shown in the budget as an expense from miscellaneous income. Any transportation reimbursements received by a school district for transporting nonpublic school pupils shall not affect district cost limitations of chapter 257. The reimbursements provided in this section are miscellaneous income as defined in section 257.2.
  5.  By June 15 of each year, school districts with eligible claims shall submit such claims to the department. By July 1 of each year, the department shall draw warrants payable to school districts which have established claims.
  6.  The state board shall adopt rules pursuant to chapter 17A to administer this section.
  7.  For purposes of this section, “therapeutic classroom” means the same as defined in section 256.25, subsection 7.
2020 Acts, ch 1108, §4
Referred to in §257.6, 257.16C
NEW section