What do we already know will be in the budget?

Tomorrow, the Governor releases the House 2 (it's the second year of the legislative term) budget at 11 am (or so). The big education funding question is the degree to which the changes to the foundation budget outlined in the Student Opportunity Act will be implemented: will it be one-seventh of the full foundation change? Or something else?

There are, however, pieces of the Act that outline year by year changes, and so there are some things we already know:

• the Act contains $30/pupil increase above the FY20 level (thus a hold harmless provision, as well)
• the Act includes out-of-district transportation for special education being included in the circuit breaker at 25% (this is a four year phase in); and remember that the circuit breaker is now frozen at the FY20 level, increasing only by inflation
• the Act includes not less than 75% reimbursement for charter reimbursement (this is a three year phase in)

Thus some of the things that are annual battles don't need to be this year, as the battle has already been waged. 

And again, if you're looking for overall phase in numbers, MassBudget is as always a good resource.