The Senate Ways and Means budget is out. Get the SWM press release and links to budget details here.
Budget
budget and local aid updates, community preservation act, financial outlook, local aid policy, priorities/requests, resources, revenue, taxes
Transportation Bond Bill Passes Senate with Funding for Localities
On Thursday, the Senate passed legislation to provide funding to continue current transportation-related projects through Fiscal Year 2013. The Chapter 90 funds appropriated by this bill for local projects, including roadway and bridge repairs, will support the infrastructure of the Commonwealth’s cities and towns. This appropriation of $200 million (equivalent to last year’s appropriation) represents …
Continue reading “Transportation Bond Bill Passes Senate with Funding for Localities”
Economic Assumptions in the FY13 Budget
The consensus revenue estimate underlying the budget appears slightly optimistic and is more uncertain than in some years.
Basing Aid on the 2006 Reform
The 2006 education aid reform was designed to allocate aid based on a better model of community ability to pay. It was intended that the new model would be phased in over 5 years. Since 2009 (Fiscal 2010), as a response to the financial crunch, we have made formula modifications that have tended to preserve …
The 2006 Education Aid Reform
Starting in Fiscal 2002, the state moved away from reliance on the statutory Chapter 70 formula, distributing education aid based on annually changing formulas written into outside Section 3 of the annual general appropriations act. It was increasingly recognized that, although Chapter 70 had been fairly successful in reducing disparities in education spending, it was …
Education Aid in the Financial Crunch
During the financial crunch, the state abandoned some formula elements that were designed to better match aid to community ability to pay. The result over the past four years has been an erratic pattern of aid increases which does not treat communities of similar wealth in similar ways. An additional feature of the erratic pattern …