On Governor Baker's FY21 budget proposal

I am sorry it has taken this long for me to get this into a blog post. I did tweet this out when the budget went up online on Wednesday.
The Governor's budget--House 2 in this second year of the Legislative term--is online here. You may also find useful the FY21 Chapter 70 school finance page from DESE (much more descriptive that previous years) and the cherry sheets (the net state aid calculations) for municipal and regional.
As last year, I have started an Excel spreadsheet with the accounts, the FY20 projected, and the FY21 proposed, along with any notes. Please feel free to use and share it, and let me know if there are ways it could be more useful.

It is the first year of the implementation of the Student Opportunity Act, so the first question is, was it implemented?
I think my answer on that is "mostly, but," as I said to Commonwealth Magazine when they called me this week.

• The estimation was the 1/7th of implementation of the Student Opportunity Act would take an additional $300M in Chapter 70 aid statewide; that was hit. 
• The new law guarantees $30/pupil minimum increases with hold harmless; that was done. 
• House 2 does increase health insurance by the GIC three year average increase of 2.34%, rather than the inflation rate for the rest of the foundation budget, which is 1.99% (which is not great at all). 
• The special education rate does take the 1/7th step towards the goal rate, plus 1/7th of the new enrollment counts
• Likewise English learners category takes 1/7th step towards the goal. 
• Low income...does not. Remember that this year, the state was directed to use the FY16 free/reduced count as a percentage to apply to this year (unless the direct certification count was higher). That added 46K kids to the count statewide, which increased the amount of dollars devoted to this category. As a result, the Governor's budget implements only 4/100ths of the goal rate. The state was directed to implement the changes in "an equitable and consistent manner" and I would argue: this isn't it.
  To give some idea of what this looks like, here are the rate charts for FY20 and FY21: 

• 

  This is FY20, the current year. Note the length of the bottom lines, particularly the very bottom one, relative to the three through six, which are the grade level foundation rates.

  
  

  

  This is FY21, the budgeted year. Note again the length of the bottom lines, the low income increments, relative to three through six. We are to be getting the bottom one equal to that in seven years. Unless not.

The danger in both state and local budgets has always been that the "new money" was going to leave those doing the allocations with the impression that they didn't need to fund other accounts (or to the same level), because schools should just pick up those activities with the new aid. This is certainly the Governor's framing of the budget. Not only are a number of accounts zeroed out--civics education, financial literacy, computer science--but several are severely cut:

•  extended learning time (7061-9412) is cut by $10M (it's a $13.9M account cut to $3.9M).
• likewise, the after and out of school grant is cut from $8.5M to $2.5M. 

Given the resources being made available in a single year of a seven year phase in, this is abrupt and not borne out by the resources put forward.

For those looking at other accounts, some of which also had SOA requirements: 

• regional transportation (which we last saw getting a boost in the supplemental budget) is budgeted at $75.8M, which is where it came out of conference committee last year. That was about an 83% reimbursement level; no doubt costs of grown, and I have yet to hear projections for this year.
• McKinney-Vento homeless transportation reimbursement is $11M, which is level funded from last year's conference committee budget. The supplemental did add another $2M to that, but unless that is re-appropriated to the schools, that goes to the general fund in municipal districts. $9M was 37%, implying that $11M was about 45%, but I would think that costs have also gone up. 
• MassBudget projected that the circuit breaker account would have to increase by $22.5M in order to incorporate transportation, as required by the Student Opportunity Act; the account goes up by $23M. However, this means there is not space in the account for the usual growth of costs. It isn't clear that this is appropriately funded.
• Similarly, charter reimbursement was projected by MassBudget to need to rise $29.4M in order to be at least 75% as required by the new law; the line increases by $19.4M in the Governor's budget. I am told that it is expected that once actual enrollments at charters are known this will be closer to what is needed. 
• educational data services (7061-9200) is going from $579,786 to $1,078,231, and I have no idea why, and I cannot find any explanation of it. I can't find any explanation of anything; are they not posting any narrative this year?
• recovery high schools were sent to study in the Student Opportunity Act, as their costs aren't being covered: last year, they were funded at $3.1M, while the Gov's budget has them at $2.6M.
• rural schools have been added the past several years, generally on a budget amendment from Senator Adam Hinds. Thus it is a bit of a victory for it to be in the Governor's budget this year, even if it is at $1.5M, rather than the $3M that is projected for FY20.
• (upon consideration, adding this): it does not appear the Governor is requesting additional appropriation for the Department, despite the SOA reporting requirements. Someone has to do the target calculations and review and respond to the reports; it appears that it's going to be the same stretched staff already there. 

It's always important to remember--and particularly important this year--that the Governor's budget is where the conversation starts. Get some idea of where your district is (if you haven't gotten your hands on circuit breaker projections, ask!), and go talk to your reps and senators.