State conference committee budget on Governor Healey's desk

I'm working through updating my running spreadsheet on the FY25 budget, but the conference committee budget released last Thursday, passed Friday, and sitting on Governor Healey's desk has a few interesting wrinkles in the education accounts. 

• In the ongoing "this is actually a terrible way to add aid to schools, but it's easy to understand" race, you might remember that the Senate had upped the House's $104 minimum per pupil increase to $110. It's usually a good bet on those that the higher number will prevail, but in this case, it did not, as the conference committee budget adopted the $104 minimum per pupil. The additional $74 per pupil that this is--remember, the Student Opportunity Act sets this at $30 per pupil--is coming from Fair Share funds. 
  And this is a really terrible and inequitable way to add school funding which is completely undercutting the entire fight over the foundation budget and passage of the Student Opportunity Act, which I will continue to scream into the void over here.
  
  
• Free lunch for all kids is in there, but the conference committee budget took the smaller (in this case Senate) number of $170M for reimbursement on this one. We should be alarmed by this, as this doesn't fully fund the account. 
  Remember, this is now a state MANDATE; if the state doesn't fully fund it, districts are on the hook for the difference. There's been far too much dependence on supplemental budgets and "finding the money somewhere" on something as grounding as feeding kids for me on this one, so consider raising this with your legislators. You can be sure that most of them are running for re-election on it. 
  This, too, is funded from Fair Share, by the way.
  
  
• Interestingly, the conference committee passed a higher number than either chamber for circuit breaker, by close to a million dollars; the passed account is $493,177,484. This suggests to me that they're using as up-to-date reimbursement projections as possible, which is good. 
  
  
• Charter reimbursement was identical all the way through, at $198M, which is $33.7M. We've been assured that this fully funded; let's keep an eye on it.
  
  
• Similarly, homeless transportation reimbursement is funded at $26.6M, which has been consistent through the process. Given how costs on this have exploded across the state, I cannot believe that this comes close to reaching need (setting aside that frequently these reimbursements don't ever get to non-regional school districts, anyway, getting stuck in municipal general funds). 
  As Salem Superintendent Zrike said before the Board of Ed in June: these are OUR kids. We need to be sure they're covered, but we also can't pretend that is magically happening somehow without funding.
  
  
• Rural school aid came through at $16M, which is down from the Senate's $17.5M but up from the House's $7.5M. While I know this isn't the hoped-for $60M, I think it's worth noting that this is now an accepted, included account, that isn't having to be stuck in over the course of the process via amendment.
  

This is obviously not everything, but it's the ones I thought to flag. I will update this post when I have the spreadsheet updated, which I hope to do later today.

UPDATE: The account by account spreadsheet is still lacking a bit in commentary, but the numbers are updated.

Also, the preliminary cherry sheets are now also updated for both municipal and for regionals.