> president sanchez, the staff who will be presenting on this item is our chief of education, jean robertson. >> hi, jean? >> good evening, commissioners and dr. matthews. i just was wo wondering if you n launch the deck because i have to get out of the whole screen mode. i'm jean robertson and i am the chief of special education services and i'm here tonight with julia martin, our ombudsperson to present or slides. our directors are also here tonight if any questions arise that i may need help answering. and so, many of you know each year, our department comes together with our special education community advisory committee members to review the budget planning process and our special education local plan that muswith the department of n every year. as you are keenly aware, we are in unprecedented times with a budget shortfall with the crisis of covid-19. i was able to involve myself in the budget development process over the last several weeks and, obviously, we are required to resource special education to the amount of its need. however, given the fiscal conditions throughout the state,

> president sanchez, the staff who will be presenting on this item is our chief of education, jean robertson. >> hi, jean? >> good evening, commissioners and dr. matthews. i just was wo wondering if you n launch the deck because i have to get out of the whole screen mode. i'm jean robertson and i am the chief of special education services and i'm here tonight with julia martin, our ombudsperson to present or slides. our directors are also here tonight if any questions arise that i may need help answering. and so, many of you know each year, our department comes together with our special education community advisory committee members to review the budget planning process and our special education local plan that muswith the department of n every year. as you are keenly aware, we are in unprecedented times with a budget shortfall with the crisis of covid-19. i was able to involve myself in the budget development process over the last several weeks and, obviously, we are required to resource special education to the amount of its need. however, given the fiscal conditions throughout the state,

. >> well, i can kick us off, i may need jean robertson to jump in and back me up, but i did hear if it we're talking about -- if we're talking about paraeducators, we're primarily talking on special education. overall, this budget actually increases our special education investment to $184 million, and that's a historic level of investment. i've been talking about the need for that all along throughout this fiscal year, but this budget makes good on that. overall, we are contributing $113 million of unrestricted general fund to special education. i'm not sure of the numbers are coming from or the idea that paraeducators are being cut. it's possible that individuals looked at the attachments around adjustments to f.t.e.s and saw individuals, f.t.e.s being reduced. that really was through reorganization of staffing, but overall, we're looking at a nine f.t.e. increase of paraeducators. i want to be clear that we're increasing both our dollars and overall f.t.e.s. >> and it would be helpful if you could show us that clarity on the documents? >> could i follow up on that question, too.