MARVIN MANDEL, Governor

2769

[[Education"]] Education [[salaries and other

instructional costs]] to the requested

appropriation expense fund in budget requests for
boards of education, and generally relating to the
category of "Special Education".

May 17, 1976.
Honorable Steny H. Hoyer
President of the Senate
State House
Annapolis, Maryland 21404

Dear Mr. President:

In accordance with Article II, Section 17 of the
Maryland Constitution, I have today vetoed Senate Bill
557.

This bill requires the county boards of education to
include requested appropriations for special education as
a separate category in their annual budgets. The purpose
of this requirement is apparently to isolate and identify
special education costs and appropriations from others in
the school budgets.

The law now requires county school operating budgets
to be subdivided into categories based upon type of
expenditure, rather than by program. There are, at
present, twelve such categories — Administration,
Instructional Salaries, Other Instructional Costs, Pupil
Personnel Services, Health Services, Pupil
Transportation, Operation of Plant and Equipment,
Maintenance of Plant, Fixed Charges, Food Services,
Capital Outlay, and Debt Service. Each of these
categories will contain funds designed to support
special education programs.

I am in full accord with the intent of the
Legislature that the resources committed to special
education programs be identified so that the county
governments, the State, and the public can be informed as
to their magnitude and their relative priority. However,
there is a better way to accomplish this objective than
by mixing program and object budgeting.

The State Department of Education, after
considerable study and effort, has proposed major
revisions in its Financial Reporting Manual that should
accomplish the objective of making uniform and specific
the reporting of funds expended for special education
programs. Implementation of these revisions will allow
the public to see what each county is spending for
special education.

To require all costs of special education to be