Is DOE agency allowed to charge for other services?

amother

Lemon

Sun, Feb 21 2016, 4:42 am

I provide services for the DOE and it is always very clear in my contract that I may not request nor accept any payment from the parents/recipient of the services, and that it is also a conflict of interest for me to offer any other services for pay to the students. I actually provide other services to non-DOE students that my DOE students might benefit from but I purposely send them to other providers if I recommend anything because I don't want to violate that.

I have a child who receives DOE services that are provided through an agency. The same agency also provides advocacy (which, BTW, I'm not thrilled with the quality of that but I couldn't afford anything better) and a few other supports that could be included with the DOE services but some agencies don't, so it's a perk but not exactly a separate service. I just got an application form to continue services next year and they are requesting an application fee and a registration fee. The fees requested amount to several hundred dollars. I will discuss it with the agency but I am wondering if this is even legal. I assume it must be because they are a large agency and working with the DOE you really need to follow their policies or your whole company could collapse. But I really don't get it. And I feel like my hands are tied because we already have a whole support team set up to meet my child's IEP needs and how can I interrupt all that and start from scratch over something like this?

amother

Lemon

Sun, Feb 21 2016, 12:27 pm

I did apply for pendency (through their advocate) but I was under the impression that they would negotiate for a better IEP and then that would be the end of the advocacy (for now.) Instead we are still in pendency and I'm no longer sure that's the best arrangement because I wanted more services, not just to continue what we had before, but the advocate is taking forever.

But in any case even though they are doing this advocacy I still think it's a conflict of interest for them to do both the advocacy and the services and charge money for "application and registration."

cnc

Sun, Feb 21 2016, 3:05 pm

amother wrote:

The meaning of pendency is :continuing services as they were up until this point.
If you want to add services, that's not pendency.

They're charging you a specific amount of money for application and registration. It would cost you around 6-8 times the amount if you would do it on your own. They are actually subsidizing it because they will make money when you get the actual services through them so it's worth it for them. Don't forget they're hiring and paying a lawyer (who charges a lot more than the money you're paying. )

Also these agencies are private agencies (not DOE agencies as you implied.) Pendency is not a DOE sevice. It's exactly the opposite. You are in fact SUEING the DOE to continue services.

I hope all my info is accurate. I don't work for an advocacy agency or the DOE. I have done lots and lots of research on this and this is some info that I have picked up.
Feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss.

amother

Lemon

Sun, Feb 21 2016, 11:45 pm

Yes, you can use pendency while going through negotiation for more services. Example: The 2015 IEP includes 10 hours of SEIT and 2 sessions of speech. In 2016 the IEP team puts you down to 5 hours of SETSS, keeps the 2 sessions of speech, and adds counseling. You think that your child still needs 10 hours of special ed, plus new concerns have arisen and you think they should get OT as well. WHILE you are in the process of working out the additional services, you can go to pendency to keep the previous IEP *until* an agreement is reached. Actually that's the whole point of pendency, is that kids shouldn't lose their services while the DOE is fighting it out.

I know the lawyer would cost much more on my own but I also thought that the negotiations would be done by now. We started with a similar case to what I described above. Got pendency for last September, reconvened the IEP team in October to request the added services, they approved some and denied others, so we are still in pendency while the advocate is supposedly negotiating for more services except I haven't heard from her. Meanwhile the new application form came asking for more money, when we haven't even gotten much of what we wanted until now. I don't have money and I'm frustrated because I have a right to the IEP services for free.