Today, Senator Brownsberger submitted the following letter to the Chair of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means outlining his budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2015. You will find a link to the signed document below. Read the Senator’s signed letter expressing his budget priorities here. Anne Johnson Landry Committee Counsel and Policy Advisor Office […]
FY15
Budget cuts?
Yesterday I got an email from another parent, saying that most if not all Boston public schools are facing substantial budget cuts next year. For example, Winship Elementary (where my son goes) shows a WSF allocation of $2,867,109 for FY14 (http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/cms/lib07/MA01906464/Centricity/Domain/108/Budget%20Resources/7._fy14_wsf_budgets_by_school_20130202.pdf page 115) and a projected WSF allocation of $2,349,227 for FY15 (http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/cms/lib07/MA01906464/Centricity/Domain/184/FY15%20budget%20resources/FY15%20Allocations_2015.02.05.pdf page 3) […]
Overview of the Governor’s Budget
Quite appropriately, Governor Patrick’s Fiscal 2015 budget continues and extends the priorities he has defined together with the legislature over the past 8 years. It does not propose major new initiatives. Total proposed Fiscal 2015 budgetary spending is $36.4 billion — up $1.7 billion or 4.9% over projected Fiscal 2014 budgetary spending. This growth is […]
Understanding the Governor’s Budget Presentation
The Patrick Administration deserves great credit for its efforts to make its budget as transparent as possible. Nonetheless, a 46 billion dollar spending program is intrinsically complex, so here are answers to a few questions that I found myself asking as I worked through the presentation. How big is the budget? The financial statement section shows proposed […]
Local Aid in the Governor's Budget
Overall, the Governor’s proposed budget for Fiscal 2015 invests only lightly in new local aid. It does sustain or increase aid in all major categories. Unrestricted General Government Aid is level funded. Chapter 70 school aid increases only 2.3%. UGGA, Chapter 70 and the other 12 smaller local aid components included in the “Cherry Sheet” […]
FY15 Major Local Aid Programs
Click here for a spreadsheet showing the increases in all 14 local aid programs from FY14 to the FY15 proposed amounts for the same communities. This spreadsheet, based on data from the Governor’s office in January, reflects the original FY15 Governor’s budget amounts for the Chapter 70 and UGGA programs. It does not reflect the […]