This morning, Governor Patrick signed the Fiscal Year 2015 state budget (visible but not finalized here in the form of the legislature’s conference committee report), returning a veto message that did not include any vetoes to local aid.
The local aid numbers adopted by a joint local aid resolution earlier this year still stand with regard to unrestricted general government aid and Chapter 70 money.
Other local aid priorities were funded in the following ways:
* The special education circuit breaker line item (line item 7061-0012) was funded at $257,513,275, considered full funding.
* Charter school reimbursement (line item 7061-9010) was funded at $80,000,000, or $33 million short of full funding.
* Reimbursement of transportation of homeless students pursuant to the McKinney-Vento Act (line item 7035-0008) was funded at $7,350,000, or $7.5 million short of full funding.
* Line item 7061-0011 provides at least $350,000 to assist Watertown with placements of students at the Perkins School for the Blind in a reserve designed to
provide extraordinary relief to school districts whose special education costs exceed 30 per cent of the total district costs and whose tuition and other circuit-breaker eligible costs for placements at an approved private school located within the district exceed both $1,000,000 and 25 per cent of all tuition and other circuit-breaker eligible costs for placements at approved private schools.
Anne Johnson Landry
Committee Counsel and Policy Advisor
Office of State Senator William N. Brownsberger