The Governor’s Budget (House 1) was recently released and included an increase in educational funding (Chapter 70), which is greatly appreciated despite the fact that it will not significantly help reduce town assessments. This is just the beginning of the state’s budget process and we hope to see, as in years past, that the House and Senate will increase educational support, including regional transportation reimbursement.
Everyone is aware of the problems with the educational funding formula, including our elected state officials due to the in-depth study and report recently undertaken by the state. This study suggested a number of ways in which the formula could be improved to resolve some of the identified problems and, as there is already discussion at the legislative level to begin the first stages of implementing some of these suggestions, we’re hopeful that there will be some movement on these issues in this upcoming budget year. While understanding that this will be a long process due to the costs involved and the financial issues faced by the state, it is important to begin this process immediately as these issues have been recognized since the very beginning of educational reform in 1993.
As has been consistently pointed out over time, nearly every school district in the state is facing financial difficulties. Larger districts (especially in some of our inner cities) face difficulties due to increasing enrollment, increasing numbers of students qualifying for free and reduced services, and low property values. Smaller districts outside of urban areas (most of the rest of the state) face decreasing enrollments but share the problem of increasing numbers of students on free and reduced status and a larger percentage of students requiring more intensive (and costly) services to succeed in the classroom. In both cases, the educational formula underestimates the costs of educational services and schools are subject to state appropriations each year to fund specific items (such as special education services and regional transportation reimbursement).
In Gateway’s case, as with a large majority of smaller and more rural schools, these problems are exacerbated by having even greater decreases in student enrollment, a small tax base with limited abilities to raise revenue, essentially volunteer town governments, and very limited representation in the state house. For this reason, a number of small and rural school districts have come together to find a more equitable way to fund education that will enhance the Chapter 70 school funding formula to ensure that these districts can be sustainable and that educational opportunities for students are more equitable across the state. I’m pleased that the Gateway School Committee has embraced this cause and that towns are also considering supporting this (our thanks to Blandford for starting this trend in our member towns). As always, moving these ideas forward into an implementation stage will require much work and support from many individuals. This includes contacting state representatives and the Governor, attending informational meetings, and supporting our local officials in getting state organizations to support the initiative. The first step is for people to better understand the issues and we’re helping make this possible by posting information on the district’s website (under school committee presentations). We look forward to working with everyone to help ensure that our schools are funded sufficiently to meet student needs and without further eroding the percentage of the school budget that is supported by local town assessments (remember that over the last 15 years the state’s share of the budget has dropped from over 60% to less than 40%).
