My First Public Administration Paper (Grad School)

From now on I'll be sharing my papers that I complete for school (Masters in Public Administration with an emphasis in governmental management). Will this information apply to everyone? No however, its informative and more importantly you get to learn about my style of writing and how I flow period! Feel free to comment, I give and I can take.. Thank Youu

Overhaul Special Education for Preschool

          Currently the state of New York is spending $2 billion dollars on a budget that initially started around $792 million towards preschool special education programs.  These programs are in place to ensure that kids with special needs achieve the necessary skills and knowledge that are needed to move forth. While this is an opportunity to close our educational gap through efforts of the State Education Department “the department wants to require stronger internal financial controls for private companies that provide the services and create a new unit within the department to oversee them” (The New York Times, 2012). There have been many requests that the legislative make the necessary changes to oversee private contractors while suggesting that the program gets re-evaluated to ensure the proper services are being rendered. Recently there were audits that took place that brought to surface the misuse of funds and how they are being distributed. With the help of the legislative, the state of New York can give authority to the hands on providers of special education programs while creating auditing divisions to evaluate cost and ensure the proper form of education is given to students with special needs.

     The concept of this reading will address 3 major topics. First, entrepreneurial government by empowering those from the bottom up to make decisions to ensure bureaucracies performs well. Second, will be public management to which will allow administrators to emphasize on internal operations within the organizations foundation. Third, there will be concerns surrounding the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to whom works closely with the executive offices to coordinate and process budget request within national government agencies. Although there is uncertainty about who is to be held accountable for the inappropriate cost and spending of the program, the topics addressed will surround concerns of public administration.

     Moreover, one of the major roles of public administration is to organize and carry out rules that are adopted by legislative, executive and courts. The New York State Education Department is known as one of the most complete, interconnected systems of educational services in the United States (NYSE, 2012). The department has main branches like any other bureaucracy with private contractors and interconnected departments that oversee the financial means for programs being provided for preschoolers with special needs.  With this, funds are not being handled properly which leaves the local officials reconsidering ways to teach their program and provide these preschoolers with the education that’s needed. Entrepreneurial government generates change from the bottom up which is foreseeable in this case being that the officials handling the budget are not really in tuned with the needs of the program. To correct this inflexibility, poor judgment and misuse of such programs, positions need to be revaluated and more authority given to those who know how to supervise, audit and conduct such systems to control cost while providing a learning environment for each child.

     Within large organizations it’s critical to have administrators available to provide support and potential solutions for complex situations that may arise. Over the past decade, the cost of the special education program has risen to $2 billion from $792 million, though the number of students served has grown only to about 75,000 from 60,000 (The New York Times, 2012). Public management with a well qualified leadership team are to conduct efforts that include managing those of interconnecting departments (who oversee the majority of the State’s budget) to ensure a more efficient and structural organization to avoid such overhauls. One way to rationalize the billing is to create regionalized rates and require providers to bid for contracts (The New York Times, 2012).  Being able to resemble the special needs program by using the proper management tools through trust and dependency while implementing new internal policies will strengthen the oversight of such fraudulent programs.  

     In essence, the Office of Management and Budget assist the president in assembling budget request for the entire executive branch and forwards them to Capitol Hill as the president’s annual budget message, coordinates operating and regulatory programs, develops high quality executive talent, and improves management processes throughout the executive branch (Milakovich, 2009). All of these areas mentioned are essential to the performance of departments and programs that are funded through OMB. The State Education department assist with the funding of the special needs program for preschoolers.  The State pays about 60 percent and counties pay the rest (The New York Times, 2012). It is the responsibility of the OMB to review and clear all request made to the legislation to ensure the consistency of the views and proposals. Such as OMB, public administrators take on similar responsibilities while ensuring that the right people are fit for the correct position along with other human resources. In this case administrators should review, the states “cost based” system that establishes rates for each company, depending on its costs for this allows inappropriate cost to be built into the program (The New York Times, 2012).

      In summary, there are many concerns of public administration within the private contractors that provide special needs programs and services. Over the last few months, the comptroller’s office has cited several private contractors who stole or misspent millions of dollars, including billing the program for no-show employees and for services that were never delivered (The New York Times, 2012). The powers that have been distributed to officials have been abused due to mismanagement of funds which calls for action. The county governments have long complained about being forced to write sizable checks with little say in the service decisions and too little authority over providers (The New York Times, 2012). The bureaucracy has to respond and re-evaluate rules, regulations and policies that are being set for New York’s special needs programs in order to cut down cost while providing each child with the right to learn.

References

About the New York State Education Department. (2012). The New York Times, retrieved from http://usny.nysed.gov/about/  on September 29, 2012

Milakovich, M.E. & Gordon, G.J. (2009). Public administration in America (10^th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Overhaul special education for preschoolers [editorial]. (2012). The New York Times, retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/opinion/overhaul-special-education-for-preschool.html?hp&_r=0  on September 29, 2012

Zients, J. (2012). Office of Management and Budget Leadership, retrieved from

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/organization_office  on September 29, 2012