Board of Ed for February: FY19 budget

the update is here

Bell: "it feels like it's old now" since the Governor's budget has been out for a month already
actively working with cities and towns to get supplemental budget funding out to districts
"all other '18 funding is moving forward" including release of budgetary earmarks
"strong budget in terms of the administration's commitment to local aid"
another $15M reserve for students who have come to Massachusetts from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; "we will eventually catch up with students in the student count"
"we'll see if the Legislature chooses additional funding" on accounts that are level funded
have looked to consolidate literacy resources "and not just look to putting literacy resources out through, effectively, earmark spending"

worth watching this:

The Governor's House 2 budget consolidates the following three line items into the newly renamed English Acquisition and Literacy Programs (7010-0033) account with a combined funding level of $3.28 million. This consolidated line item includes $500,000 to comply with DOJ requirements to train ELL teachers in vocational technical schools and $200,000 to implement the Language Opportunity for Our Kids (LOOK) Act.
7010-0020 Bay State Reading Institute
7010-0033 Literacy Programs
7027-1004 English Language Acquisition

$250,000 for development of a new assessment for history and social studies with some discussion of what that will be; may not be much like every other assessment 
Federal government agreed to a two year budget deal; predictability of spending
"we anticipate our federal lines will be pretty much level funded"

Peyser: flags $25M in Ch.70
for this current year and next year, the adminstration has proposed increases within health insurance as an allocation towards changes to the foundation budget

McKenna: asks about after school programming, which leads to a question of earmarks