A change in federal policy on Medicaid funding will cost the Lawrence school district $350,000 in providing care for the district’s most fragile students, officials said Friday.

Frank Harwood, chief operations officer for the Lawrence district, said the district will continue to provide the services, but will have to shift funding from other areas to pay for them.

Officials from several school districts were telling the Legislative Budget Committee about financial problems that have arisen since the federal ruling.

Recently, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services ruled that attendant care services could no longer be covered in schools unless the Kansas Medicaid program also covered those services in non-school settings. That would have cost an additional $25 million to $30 million per year, so state officials decided to discontinue reimbursement for attendant care services.

Attendant care services include assistance with toileting, dressing, hygiene, feeding and mobility.

Last year, Lawrence schools billed Medicaid for 502 students who received eligible services. Of those, 149 received attendant care services of just less than two hours per day per student.

Harwood said the district was looking at significant financial problems caused by two years of state budget cuts, the eventual loss of federal stimulus funding and now the Medicaid problem.

“Lawrence public schools will have to brace for another very painful round of budget cutting which will be exacerbated by reductions in Medicaid reimbursement,” he said.