Hunting for Dollars
When School District Secretary Donna Cooney learned that her district was entitled to Medicaid funds, she went on a hunting expedition and bagged big bucks.
NORTH SYRACUSE, NEW YORK
Donna Cooney says she was just doing her job, but she did it so well that the North Syracuse School District won’t need a tax increase for quite a while.
A member of Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)/ AFSCME Local 1000, Cooney has worked 16 years for the school district, but she is new to her current position of secretary to the director of special education.
As she was trying to tackle her new job, which included learning New York’s new billing system for special education, Cooney learned that the state had done an audit. It showed that the school district had not claimed any Medicaid reimbursement funds for special education services.
Cooney knew that the district was providing those services. Her previous job had been in a school with many special education students.
SPECIAL NEEDS. “You talk to the parents a lot. Special education parents live the parental job 24 hours a day,” she says. “They have to be their kids’ primary advocate — putting together the pieces of the puzzle.
“That experience helped me understand many of the issues,” says Cooney, who knew first hand the variety of services needed to thoroughly integrate students with special needs into the education process.
She plowed through reams of paperwork, poring over the numbers and formulas. “I’m the type of person who needs to get the whole picture,” she says.
That whole picture revealed that the school district was eligible for Medicaid reimbursement funds for special education. No one had ever applied for the special education funds. Cooney also learned that Medicaid regulations allowed the district to request funds for the previous two years.
SUPER SLEUTH. Cooney documented the case-based management services the school district had provided to its 1,400 special education students. “I kept pursuing it to the point where we got an OK from the state to go back past the two-year usual limit,” she notes. Cooney bagged a bundle — almost $1 million — that went to offset potential tax increases.
She gives a lot of the credit for her success to her supervisor, the director of special education. “If you have a good idea or a better way of doing things, my boss will back you up,” says Cooney. The windfall is a boon to the school district and is much appreciated by the community. The school superintendent and board of education acknowledged Cooney’s achievement — presenting her with the district’s first Dedicated Service Recognition Award.
“Members like Donna Cooney make us all proud,” says CSEA Central Region Pres. Jim Moore. “I’m glad the school district recognized her accomplishment, and I wish that all the other workers out there who regularly do outstanding work would get recognized as she did.”
Cooney really can’t see what all the fuss is about. After all, she was just doing her job. “As a former student from this district,” she says, “I feel like it’s kind of a paying back.”
By Susan Ellen Holleran
