Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Senate Ways and Means budget hits urban districts

A quick look at the Senate Ways and Means budget shows it hitting urban districts like Worcester:
  • It not only funds that "extra" $40/pupil for wealthy districts that the House budget has, it expands funding to those districts. That "otherwise not receiving full funding under the state local aid distribution formula" bit from the Telegram and Gazette is the "you gotta get 15% from the state" regressive addendum to the foundation formula; the theory is based on it being "unfair" to fund according to need. Not necessary and not, in fact, fair.
  • It does not (so far as I can find) fully fund the charter reimbursement. The House had it at 74%; no note here. That will cost Worcester $916,500 next year of money the state is legally obligated to fund.
  • There is no funding for State Auditor Suzanne Bump's finding that the state is obligated to fund transportation of homeless students (which cost Worcester $450,000 last year), as the Senate has cut from their version of the budget the $11.3 million that the House passed.
About the only good news in here for Worcester? The special ed circuit breaker is fully funded.

I'm writing to my senator. Are you?

2 comments:

  1. what does fully fund the charter reimbursement mean

    ReplyDelete
  2. T, a sending district gets the funds associated with a student after that child goes to a charter school a at decreasing rate (100% the first year, 25% for two years after). As a single child leaving a school anywhere in the system doesn't actually save us much (if any) money, it is supposed to ease the transition.
    However, that commitment is not being kept to sending districts. This is the second year in a row that the Legislature is underfunding the charter reimbursement.

    ReplyDelete

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