Ensuring next year's state budget is ready for federal impacts

 As I noted back in October, there were changes made to how the federal government is managing SNAP and Medicaid that will have impacts on school funding and on the state budget. I said then, and I continue to fear now, that I don't see indications that Massachusetts is making this part of our preparation for FY27 and beyond. 

Again, there are costs within both programs that are being rebalanced to require greater funding from the state side (this was represented not as being a cut at the federal level; it's passing the cost on to states). I would be glad to be corrected, but I don't see that Massachusetts is preparing for that increased pull from state funds.

Any increased pull in other directions, of course, puts pressure on the state budget deciders in their commitments to education funding.

As families fall off of SNAP and Medicaid, they fall off of the databases that determine direct certification for free lunch in the districts that use that. While that is not an immediate impact--community eligibility runs on a four year cycle, and the districts can rebase at any time--that means that we probably will see a decline in the number of students who are eligible over coming years.
Because Massachusetts now requires all districts to provide free lunch for all students, it isn't the families that will see an impact. Districts, however, probably will: if they lose enough students to no longer make the direct certification calculation work to fully cover all students, they'll no longer be fully federally funded for free lunch for all.
Is the state prepared to pick up that unknown amount of reimbursement for universal free meals?

Again, there's also the question of how things are calculated in state aid for Chapter 70. Those same databases are what we use to determine which students are counted as low income. Again, there is a delay in the "when" on rolling off; at some point, we're going to see that impact.

The first thing I'll be looking at is the statewide count on low income once the state updates the statewide profile information in the coming weeks. That should, because it's the October 1 number, be unimpacted. But I fear it is only downhill from there.

I would very much like to see some indication that this is something that is not only being considered, but is being planned for. 

This is a scary post, so please enjoy this placid photo of Worcester's Holden Reservoir #1.