Sunday, September 2, 2018

Foundation budget editorial in the T&G calls out the Legislature

Good editorial today in the Telegram, calling out the Legislature on their lack of action on the foundation budget:
What’s painful is that this issue didn’t happen overnight - it’s been building for years. Any excuses that the Legislature “ran out of time” during this two-year session ignores warnings going back a decade. The 1993 Education Reform Act, with foresight, includes a mechanism for a periodic review of the formula. A foundation budget review commission, headed by legislative and state education leaders, and incorporating a wide variety of participants that included teacher unions, began meeting in 2014 and issued a report in 2015, more than a year before the just-ended legislative term began in 2017. And if that weren’t enough, there were the threats of new suits against the state emanating from cities such as Worcester and Brockton.
I think it's a little hyper-focused on the revenue end--if anyone was, that was the House--but it hits the main points well, particularly that it isn't as if this snuck up on the Legislature all of a sudden. 

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