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Dr. David Hopson |
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February 14, 2008 The newspapers have been full of discussions surrounding Governor Patrick’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2009. While there will continue to be much debate over local aid to cities and towns financed by casino revenue, the fact that the governor put additional money into school aid (Chapter 70) is welcomed by all. Gateway’s budget, and the resulting anticipated local assessments, is based upon the governor’s proposed budget. No one anticipates getting less money than is in the proposal; neither do they figure that the odds are good that there will be substantially more money for schools in the budget. The picture is not less rosy when we start to look at the underlying assumptions in local educational aid and how they impact our budget. As I’ve been sharing with you for some time, the amount that the state says we should be able to operate the district on (the foundation budget) is far below the actual costs. This figure is determined by assigning inflation to a set of factors (i.e., operations and maintenance, insurance) where the base figure was established in the early 1990’s. In addition, these factors are based upon ‘minimum sizes’ established during the same time frame which would mean, as one example, that combining Mohawk’s and Gateway’s high schools would still not meet the minimum size for a high school although the resulting district would cover nearly 500 square miles of Massachusetts. When these factors are put together, the actual cost of meeting the 11 items counted in the foundation amount are nearly 3 million dollars more than the state has determined. Couple this with the fact that many school districts in the state have declining enrollment (meaning less money coming in) and you have the recipe for financial disaster for rural districts like ours. The only saving grace to date has been the ‘hold harmless’ proviso, which means that we don’t lose additional money in state aid (i.e., the governor’s budget provides this year’s base and an additional $50 per student). While every school district in the state has problems with local school aid from the state because the foundation budget is so much lower than reality, Gateway is especially hard hit. For example, in FY2000 state aid accounted for 59% of required spending and 55.7% of actual spending while in FY2008 state aid accounted for 51.2% of required spending but only 41% of actual spending (all for the aspects related to the foundation budget). In short state aid dropped 8% for minimum spending and nearly 16% in actual spending in these categories. When this is combined with the lack of fully funding regional transportation (required by law but subject to appropriations by the legislature each year) it’s quite easy to see why local town assessments have been increasing at an ever increasing pace even if school services are not increasing. On a per pupil basis the change is staggering. In FY2003 the state paid Gateway $4,512 per student. After 4 years of increasing costs in the district (as well as in everyone’s lives) the state paid $4,128 per student for FY2007—a net loss of nearly $400, without considering inflation. Regional transportation reimbursement percentages dropped from 100% in FY2001 to 82% in FY2007—a great deal of money when you consider we pay over $1,361 per student in transportation costs (and that’s counting every student). We’ve managed to keep this year’s budget increase to 2.55% and the average town assessment to 3.98% by not hiring replacements for many retiring staff members. While this is feasible this year, it may not be so in future years. To ensure that education remains fiscally viable in our district we need to advocate for 100% regional transportation reimbursement, an increase in the foundation budget to more adequately reflect actual costs, and some sort of adjustment factor for smaller schools. Without changes to our revenue stream from the state, we will continue to face ever more difficult choices in order to afford educating our children in the future. ### |
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