[ Previous Section | Next Section | Contents ]

Special Schools and Commissions

In general, there were very few changes to the four special schools: the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired, the Louisiana School for the Deaf, the Louisiana Special Education Center, and the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts. They were all affected by Executive Order cuts while at the same time receiving modest budget adjustments for increased costs including transportation, salaries, and the state’s new human resource system. The Louisiana School for the Deaf did receive an additional 20 positions. Perhaps the most notable change for these schools was the addition of a new revenue source to their budgets. Each school received $63,750 out of the Education Excellence Fund; a statutory dedication set up last year from the tobacco settlement.

The Office of Student Financial Assistance received an $8.8 million increase over the current fiscal year operating budget including 13 new positions. Approximately $3.7 million were in Federal Funds resulting from a refund of a reinsurance increase in the Loan Operations Program. There was also a $1.3 million reduction in state general funds for TOPS compared to FY 00 where the estimates and appropriations for awards were much higher than what was ever realized.

TOPS received $79.6 million in state general funds for roughly 35,000 TOPS awards for FY 01. Additionally, $6 million in contingency funding was provided for TOPS eligible students to cover the cost of potential tuition increases. The following chart indicates the number of awards and state actual costs since FY99 (state costs are rounded).

	# of Awards	State Cost
FY99	23,446	$54,000,000
FY00	28,108	$67,000,000
FY01	35,000	$80,000,000