Governor Baker at MASBO

Today MASBO has their annual Solutions Fair, and Governor Baker is giving the keynote. One assumes that the Governor addressing school finance people will involve school funding, thus posting to come here. 
Secretary Peyser is also here with the Governor.
Part of his introduction references the day his budget is filed being one of the biggest days of the year for the people in this room

Governor Baker: I really appreciate the work that you do
"I always say that I served on the board of selectmen rather than the school committee because the school committee is too hard."

so many vendors here and offering your opportunities
"a lot more to operating a school than just the classroom"
was also on a school building committee "which I swear took ten years off my life"
ask "how many of you think the day the budget comes out is a big day?"
hands go up all over the room; he's clearly taken aback
"the day we SIGN the budget is the big day!"
nope, because by then it's too late
"well, there's a lot of people who put a lot of work into it"
know how much you love it when the numbers change after you've put your budget together
"I suppose it's better for that number to go up then for the number to go down"
"was around when the original reform bill passsed"
"there's a bunch of reasons why it did happen: the reforms were meaningful and people understood what they were"
was being discussed for over a year prior
implemented over seven years; gave time to build into financial models
"all those pieces got implemented"
"general agreement to what was being accomplished...as some of the players changed, people just stayed with it"
"the benefit to the Commonwealth and the people who live here...is really hard to underestimate and really hard to calculate"
"a signature of what makes the Commonwealth a special place"
"needs to be meaningful...sustained approach to financing" and agreement around accountability
FBRC raised four big issues that needed to be addressed
"the health care stuff we started implemented about four years ago"
"and we built in a seven year run"
"I think that one of the things that's going to happen as this moves forward is people are going to spin the dials"
"how do those elements get addressed and" how long
"if we said to all of you, we're going to implement the foundation budget next year; by the way, you owe 55 to 45% of that; have a nice day...yeah"
note that many communities are already funding much of this
"a lot of work being done" in the past year around standards and MCAS
"the Board did almost a year's worth of hearings around the Commonwealth"
"more or less fully formed" at this point
adding civics, as well
pursuing what I consider what I consider to be some of the opportunities in some of the schools to pursue some of the opportunities that they haven't had a chance to
"I take a lot of optimism into this one, primarily because of" Riley
and he's going through Riley's history here, which I'm not going to type up, because you've read it already 
"and Lawrence made a spectacular amount of progress"
"I would argue that in my lifetime...we have never had a commissioner...who has spent this amount of time in urban education"

"ours is about a $200M increase in Ch. 70...I'm sure you all know this"
"my guess is the House will send some of signal" with their budget
"my hope frankly is that one way or another we get this issue put to bed by the end of this budget cycle"
hope we can get a resolution of what the next four years, five years, seven years
"so people have a pretty good idea, and you have a pretty good idea...of what the next" couple of years of funding will look like
"I think it's going to be our hope that for...predictability...that we get a glidepath in place" for multiple years
believe bill "is doable and achieveable"
"have the ability to do it"
"having been a local official, I have seen what it looks like" for reforms that don't stick
"we have work to do, everybody always has work to do...always...walk away feeling that...we have a done a heck of a lot of really good work"

Questions:
Q:funding that you said was going towards health care: has been a double digit increase in some years; still a cap on increase or will it take more of a CPI into account?
enrollment changes
Baker: the way the formula works going forward is it builds off what the GIC is going forward
"I don't have a good answer for that one" on student change
formula builds off student population; creating issues for losing population
"I would love, by the way, to get our housing bill passed" as thinks it would make difference
Q: fundable and doable: say more?
Baker: rolled the formula out seven years and then took the things that are going to be
"enough of the budget at this point...are pretty easy to model" that you can roll it out
ran the formula out the way we did without additional revenue sources
Q: talk about rural sparcity?
Baker: give me a for instance
there's a back and forth here as Baker seems to be sorting out what is being spoken of
"that's a good topic for the debate we're going to have"
questioner speaking at some length about needs that aren't factored in for the Berkshires
Baker: "would you rather have that funded through the formula or for something else?"
response: "I would much rather than it funded through the formula"
Peyser finally jumps in with the rural schools commission proposed in House bill 70
Rural schools initiative; Berkshire County Taskforce both mentioned by the crowd

Baker: "By the way, I had NO IDEA that my budget filing was such a big deal; there will be reference to this next year somewhere in the budget document!"