New York City continues to budget eye-popping sums for Carter Cases—the umbrella term many families recognize as tuition reimbursement and related spend after a student prevails in (or settles) an administrative dispute. In the City Council’s budget materials, the FY2025 Carter Cases allocation is described as reaching about $1.1B, and importantly, it’s not “just tuition.” The budget description explicitly references tuition payments, mandated services vouchers, legal expenses, and other funding.
Why does that matter? Because the public conversation often collapses everything into “private school reimbursement,” when the actual spending reflects multiple system pressures: service delivery gaps, delayed implementation, and a due process pipeline that, when strained, can drive costs upward.
From a family perspective, the takeaway isn’t simply “DOE is spending a lot.” It’s that the system’s financial incentives and operational bottlenecks are now visible at the budget level, which creates leverage for advocacy: policymakers can’t claim this is marginal spending anymore.
What families can do (practically):
- Document missed services and implementation delays in real time.
- Keep written communications centralized (requests, follow-ups, provider logs).
- If you’re considering a due process path, ask counsel to explain the full remedy landscape: tuition, compensatory services, related service authorizations/vouchers, and timelines.
