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 …
Budget
budget and local aid updates, community preservation act, financial outlook, local aid policy, priorities/requests, resources, revenue, taxes
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 …
What’s wrong with Chapter 70?
The three pages linked to at the bottom of this page explore the implementation of the education aid reforms of 2006 through the financial crunch and consider alternative implementations for FY2013 and beyond. Education aid was formerly distributed to communities pursuant to Chapter 70 of the General Laws and “Chapter 70” is still shorthand for …
FY2013 Budget Priorities Letter to Senate Ways and Means
I transmitted today my annual statement of budget priorities to the Senate Ways and Means Chair.
Governor’s Actions on the Budget
The Governor has signed the budget, making no spending changes and relatively few changes in “outside sections.” He did send back the municipal health care reform provisions with four narrow changes.
Senate Budget Released
There are several items of local concern in the Senate Ways and Means Draft Budget released yesterday.