The definition of "minimum standards of educational quality" as established in the Guidelines and Bases of National Education Law, from 1996, also concerns the use of financial resources that enable the creation, maintenance and expansion of services to students with disabilities, global development disorder and high abilities/gifted ones. In order to discuss issues that are related to the special education’s funding, this article presents some results of an exploratory study in a city of São Paulo, over the period of 2008 to 2011, which analyzed the origin sources and costs of this type of education. The study revealed that spending with special’s education, in comparison to others types, is inexpensive on the general budget of education, also there are massive resources available to philanthropic institutions.