Senate Budget Released – Will Brownsberger

A couple of items of local concern in the Senate Ways and Means Budget draft which was released yesterday:

The main local aid numbers are unchanged from the House and Governor. So, these numbers are reconfirmed.
The Senate has not put the special education circuit breaker at the same level as the House and the Governor. This program was cut to $133m to offset federal aid increases in fiscal 2010 and 2011. To offset the falloff in federal aid in FY2012, the House and the Governor had restored the account to the 2008 level of $213m. The Senate put this number at $183m, restoring only $50m instead of the full $80m. Hopefully, the Senate will improve this on the floor or we can address it in conference, but this is an item to watch.
Partially offsetting the failure to restore the full circuit breaker, the Senate does include, as outside Section 130, the language that the Governor proposed to limit rate increases for out-of-district placements. This language was not in the House budget.
The most closely watched issue in the Senate budget was the municipal health care reform issue. The Senate does include its own proposal on this issue. That’s good news — it means that we are virtually certain to do something on the issue in the final negotiations between the House and Senate. The Senate proposal awards a higher share of savings to employees and also creates a more rigorous process for implementing plan design changes. The main issue is the process — the Senate approach sets up a closure mechanism (involving a gubernatorial referee) if the parties can’t agree, rather than allowing management to move forward unilaterally. Reactions so far have been muted from both labor and municipal managers — the concept is new enough that people need to digest it. Attached is the summary of the proposal prepared by the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Update as of the afternoon of May 26: The Senate just voted to increase the circuit breaker allocation to $194 million (the 60%) level. Senator Katherine Clark sponsored the amendment, which the Senate unanimously supported. This brings the Senate closer to the House level of $213 million (roughly the 75% level). Hopefully, we can close the gap further in conference, ideally by settling on the House number.

I have been characterizing Belmont’s January estimate of special education circuit breaker reimbursement as roughly $400K below its likely final value. That $400K was somewhat conservative and is still likely to be close to right even if we get stuck with the Senate’s final number.

The January estimate was level funding from last year at $546,769. That was assuming a 40% reimbursement. Going from 40% to 60% (Senate’s latest number) inflates $546K by half or $273K. But additionally, I understand that Belmont’s FY11 special education costs are coming in above FY10 costs. Since FY12 reimbursement is based on FY11 costs, this should also generate an increased FY12 reimbursement. I can’t peg the exact amount of that increase, but the school department should be able to estimate the FY10 and FY11 reimburseable amounts pretty closely at this point since we are close to the end of the fiscal year.

The exact computation depends on three factors none of which are exactly known right now:

The amount of reimbursement claims from Belmont that the state finds valid for FY2011 (as noted, we should be close to knowing that).
The amount of valid reimbursement claims filed by all other schools for FY2011.
The amount that is appropriated in the final conference process — the final reimbursement rate is set after all the claims are in by dividing the appropriation over the reimburseable claims.

Click here for more information on the computation.

One reply on “Senate Budget Released”

Will Brownsberger says:

May 26, 2011 at 4:11 PM
Update as of the afternoon of May 26: The Senate just voted to increase the circuit breaker allocation to $194 million (the 60%) level. Senator Katherine Clark sponsored the amendment, which the Senate unanimously supported. This brings the Senate closer to the House level of $213 million (roughly the 75% level). Hopefully, we can close the gap further in conference, ideally by settling on the House number.

I have been characterizing Belmont’s January estimate of special education circuit breaker reimbursement as roughly $400K below its likely final value. That $400K was somewhat conservative and is still likely to be close to right even if we get stuck with the Senate’s final number.

The January estimate was level funding from last year at $546,769. That was assuming a 40% reimbursement. Going from 40% to 60% (Senate’s latest number) inflates $546K by half or $273K. But additionally, I understand that Belmont’s FY11 special education costs are coming in above FY10 costs. Since FY12 reimbursement is based on FY11 costs, this should also generate an increased FY12 reimbursement. I can’t peg the exact amount of that increase, but the school department should be able to estimate the FY10 and FY11 reimburseable amounts pretty closely at this point since we are close to the end of the fiscal year.

The exact computation depends on three factors none of which are exactly known right now:
1. The amount of reimbursement claims from Belmont that the state finds valid for FY2011 (as noted, we should be close to knowing that).
2. The amount of valid reimbursement claims filed by all other schools for FY2011.
3. The amount that is appropriated in the final conference process — the final reimbursement rate is set after all the claims are in by dividing the appropriation over the reimburseable claims.
Click here for more information on the computation.

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Published by Will Brownsberger

One reply on “Senate Budget Released”