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Q&A
Efficiency and timeliness of special education hearings
2:16:34
ยท
101 sec
Council Member Restler inquires about the decline in efficiency of special education hearings at OATH, noting a decrease in case closure rates and an increase in average closure time. Commissioner Rahman explains that the decline is due to an increase in caseload, particularly a surge in filings last summer.
- OATH closed only 85.6% of cases within the regulatory timeframe, down 10% from the previous year.
- The average time to close cases increased by 23%, from 68 to 84 days.
- OATH is managing the increased caseload through internal process improvements and requesting additional resources from OMB.
Lincoln Restler
2:16:34
Thank you very much, council member Brewer.
2:16:36
I'd like to continue on the topic of special education hearings.
2:16:39
So recognizing there's been some improvements relative to just the disaster of how this issue had been handled at the DOE, in the first four months of FY twenty five, Oath closed only eighty five.
2:16:51
Point six percent of cases within the regulatory timeframe, which is down ten percent from last year.
2:16:56
And the average time to close cases increased 23% from sixty eight to eighty four days.
2:17:00
Could you speak to these declines and what measures Oath is taking to more efficiently resolve the case?
Asim Rahman
2:17:05
Yeah, so I could say without scientific certainty, but I could say that our main understanding for that decrease in time was because of an increase in caseload
Lincoln Restler
2:17:16
last.
2:17:16
Increase in time.
2:17:17
But yeah.
Asim Rahman
2:17:18
Right, right.
2:17:18
Meaning the drop in the compliance, I'm was due to an increased caseload.
2:17:27
In particular, last year, last summer, because of some movements that were happening at the state level, there was a very sudden surge of a particular type of case that was filed by parents and we've had to deal with that massive surge.
2:17:43
And so the increased caseload has of course created new work.
2:17:47
How are we dealing with it?
2:17:48
Well, we have to very tightly manage internally how we do our case assignments, how we set up our processes.
2:17:54
And then there comes the question of resources, which as I mentioned has had us go to OMB to this is how our numbers have changed.
2:18:05
This is what we think is the right ratio of cases per hearing officer.
2:18:10
We think we need more resources and we just got more, we got permission to hire new IHO.
Lincoln Restler
2:18:15
So the thing that I'm struggling with and maybe I don't have a comprehensive enough understanding of the issue, but in last week's committee on the education, in last week's education committee's preliminary budget hearing, DOE spoke to a decrease in filings of due process claims by about 20% during the twenty four-twenty five school year, which I would have thought was reflected in these PMMR increases that are discordant with what you just testified to.