R-5 school board sets tuition for Heartland's out-of-state students

By Lynn A. Wade

Nevada Daily Mail

The Nevada R-5 school board voted to instate a new tuition rate for out-of-state students served at Heartland Behavioral Health Center in Nevada, at the rate of $11,056 per year per student. Under the new rate plan, the fee for educating such students would be charged only for hours each student attended classes based on that annual rate, because the number of students served changes frequently. Administrators plan to use attendance records on which to base the fee for each student.

For many years, teachers employed by Heartland taught the facility's students, but in recent years, Heartland fell on troubled times, both clinically and financially, according to Heartland CEO Mike Ham, who took over management of the facility after it was purchased by a new company last year.

Enrollment at the behavioral health facility that serves youth was down to about 30 students last year, with only a handful of them -- five or fewer -- from out of state. At that point the Nevada R-5 school district agreed to teach all of the students, with no tuition imposed as no additional teacher and negligible additional resources were needed.

But this year, Heartland has 67 Missouri students and 15 out-of-state students. State law requires that any education provided to such students can't be an expense to the local taxpayers, so the R-5 district can't recoup any money from the state for educating such students.

Superintendent Ted Davis said there are some federal funding sources that help with a portion of such costs, but the district simply isn't allowed much funding for out-of-district students, and no state funds are allowed for out-of-state students. For example, some state funding would be available for a Missouri student, such as a Sheldon resident who wanted to attend Nevada schools; so tuition, in that case, would be $2,200 for kindergarten through fifth grade; $2,300 for sixth through eighth grade, and $2,800 for high school students.

"We've struggled with this. We've talked and talked," said Davis, of discussions about the matter with Ham.

Nevertheless, at this point only two options are apparent. Either the district charges the hefty tuition fee, or the district does not provide education to out-of-state students -- neither of which offers an appealing solution to Heartland.

Ham said, "$12,000 a year is not in our budget," and asked the board to postpone its decision for a month.

"This is something that we know needs to be taken care of. We (Heartland) recognize we do have to do something, but we think there might be some other options," Ham said. He told the board that although the issue has been under discussion, he discovered earlier on Wednesday that it was likely the board would make a decision that evening. He believes there may be another solution that would enable the district and Heartland to come to a more agreeable compromise.

"There are other RTC's doing this, but I don't really know how it would work for us." Ham said, noting that financially, Heartland is currently "about breaking even," without the tuition fee imposed, and he wants to continue investigating options.

Davis said he didn't believe waiting would change things much from the district's perspective -- unless some sort of of option enabling these students to be considered as in-state students or some other, unforeseeable option arises.

School board president Chris Ellis said he felt action should be taken, since the board is responsible to its patrons and the state to address such financial issues, noting that "any action we take tonight could be revisited later."

Larry Forkner made the motion to instate the new rate, and the board approved the measure by voice vote.