Look, there is a document on this! There is also a PowerPoint, which NEVER happens
This is also being taken out of order on the agenda
Martinez notes the literacy grant wasn't in the House Ways & Means budget, nor were the literacy institutes, nor reimagining high school grant (pay for AP exams) and support early college and MyCap
The House Committee on Ways & Means released their FY27 budget last Wednesday, and they're currently taking amendments before the House debate on the budget starts next week.
I've been considering what to say about it since then (sorry if you've been waiting for me to post on it), and the refrain I kept coming back to is what state law says is the intent of the Legislature when it comes to school funding:
It is the intention of the general court, subject to appropriation, to assure fair and adequate minimum per student funding for public schools in the commonwealth by defining a foundation budget and a standard of local funding effort applicable to every city and town in the commonwealth.
The Board of Ed meets today at nine. Their agenda is here; the livestream is here.
I'm joining this one remotely, as I spent yesterday at the Fordham Education Law Symposium, which was great, and maybe I will write about that here at some point.
"real challenge" per Martinez at federal level on funding, related to enrollment decline and other things
pay attention when things like this are said
Bill Bell on the Governor's budget
SOA implemented in full as of FY27
concern of how chapter 70 is working; increasing number of districts receiving minimum aid
Department, Commissioner, Executive Office, A&F "aren't tone deaf to the issue"
commitment to see through implementation of Student Opportunity Act; what leaders want to do after that "remains to be seen"
circuit breaker growing by $100M into next budget year
haven't received word on what the education funding levels would be for federal grants in entitlement grants
baseline is funded nationally, but allocations remain to be seen
Legislators have begun their process of budget hearings: education and local aid is March 23 in Lawrence
Hills asks if they have the resources needed to implement the goals
Martinez, in essence, says it is a start
Smidy: the capacity is very limited in the field
even with allocations and grants, a lot of schools are not going to be in a position to move forward with these initiatives if they don't have the resources to move forward
Craven: need a sense about what costs are being piled onto districts
Martinez: not only the need, but also where districts are in
"when we use the word 'advocacy' we're using it too loosely"
nah, that's still advocacy; you just want specific advocacy
"how do we become strategic about our resources..."
this is what people say when they aren't going to give you more funding to do more things
report on local contribution coming in June
Bell: another attempt to meet the needs of local districts and communities that exist within a capped revenue environment
And adjourned
So far only State House News has this (sorry, they're paywalled), but next year's revenue figure (at least for now) has been agreed upon and released:
Secretary of Administration and Finance Matthew Gorzkowicz, Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues and House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz said their tax estimate agreement includes money coming in from the surtax on high-earning households. Excluding surtax revenue, the agreement foresees $42.2 billion in tax revenue for fiscal year 2027, an increase of 2.4% over the current fiscal 2026 benchmark. The most recent national measure of inflation showed prices rose at an annual rate of 2.7% as of the end of 2025.
The headline reads 2.7% because it includes the Fair Share funding:
Budget managers also agreed to assume $2.7 billion in surtax revenue will come in during fiscal 2027 and to cap surtax revenue spending at the same amount. That would make $300 million more in surtax revenue available for spending compared to the current budget, they said. Massachusetts collected $3 billion from the surtax in fiscal 2025 and that revenue by law is supposed to only be spent on education and transportation.
So they're underbudgeting again...sigh.
And wouldn't you know, it's a double header, because these things aren't coordinated!
Since fiscal 2019, when Senate and House Ways and Means Chairs Sen. Michael Rodriguesand Rep. Aaron Michlewitz began leading the budget committees, four fiscal years ended with total spending that outstripped the next year’s enacted budget.
The pattern raises questions about whether the formal annual budget — debated for months and trumpeted each summer — has become less a blueprint for state spending and more of a starting point that lawmakers revise dramatically and with increasing regularity through midyear spending.
What it will do is begin to give some sense of how they're thinking about next year. I'm also looking forward (?) to seeing if anyone else is concerned about the massive impact the federal changes to Medicaid and SNAP are going to have on this and following budgets.
I'm off to the Good Friday Way of the Cross, but the spreadsheet for FY26 state education accounts is now updated. It looks like it is important to view with the supplemental budget which is still moving through the state legislature.
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| sign from Amherst Regional |
Coming to you live today from the Joint Committee on Ways and Means hearing at UMass Amherst. A number of the surrounding districts are here--Quabbin Regional brought a bus; Amherst Regional walked over--and I just hope someone told all these people that they don't take public testimony. If you're here and need power, by the way, I have a power strip at one of the outlets, so come over if you need it.
I'll post as we go. Note that they have us in what is the airplane hanger of an auditorium on the first floor of the Campus Center, so I can barely see the committee members; I'm making no promises on being able to identify speakers.
They'll start with intros then have the Secretary with the three Commissioners.
In light of the Joint Ways and Means hearing on Monday (on education and local aid)
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| spring flowers on the Boston Greenway this week |
One of the, rightful in my view, complaints about responses to the Trump administration has been that others aren't meeting the moment: whether it's Senator Schumer and others caving on the continuing resolution or Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison caving on their legal work or please add whatever you like to this list which is already depressing.
I have been mulling since Governor Healey filed her budget this January. While I posted about the budget from a regular perspective then, the light in which I think we really should be considering FY26 is in light of the national scene. We did have some of this, of course, back at the consensus revenue hearing back in December--
I'd sum it up as "We feel pretty good about where revenue is heading next year EXCEPT for the giant unknown of the federal government, which YIKES."
--and there continue to be murmurings at the state level again about revenue, but I haven't seen a lot of discussion of what all of this should mean for expenditures.
Noting again that we do not have the capacity to make up federal funding for the state budget if we lose it all, what are some of the things about which the budget should concern itself?
It would seem to me, as a state that intends to uphold the civil rights of all, and to fight off efforts to make our lives actively worse, that making sure people can live here rises up.
That's housing, not just building more but being sure we use what we have.
It is making sure that people have the education and skills they need to get and keep jobs here; I think here, among other things, of the ongoingly level funded adult education line (though I know that this year, there is funding elsewhere).
It's actively offering support--mental health support? legal support?--for so many bearing the brunt of the federal mess, like immigrants, trans people and their families, veterans, and I feel as if this list could go on.
It's certainly appropriately funding the AG's office, so those there can continue to wrestle with the federal administration on their disastrous attempts to break things.
That's not a full list--it isn't intended to be one--but I do think we have to frame the budget in this manner. I'd love for us to think of it this way.
...will be starting here, though it appears to be the Senate adjourning right now...
I don't write down all the numbers, because I only get them orally
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| I am doing one of my periodic comfort re-reads of Terry Pratchett; this is a good summary of the House budget. Alas, no answers here. |
Wednesday's post was a quick one. Here's some more information and some thinking on the House Ways and Means budget on K-12 education; as always, this is me, out here having an opinion in my entirely unofficial capacity.
The budget is here, though really that's where you download PDFs. Wouldn't it be amazing if instead there were updates to the posting of the Governor's budget, with nice little clickable links, and the ability to see at a glance what changes were being proposed over time?
If you'd like at least the change being proposed, I have now started a spreadsheet of the K-12 education accounts, which is here. (I did not start that with the Governor's budget this year, and, yikes, lesson learned!).
Also, the cherry sheets--municipal; regional--are now updated and seem to be up for good now (they went up and back down yesterday).
I am posting here the whole of the oral testimony of MASC President Mildred Lefebvre of Holyoke.
The House Ways and Means budget was posted today at noon.
GOOD MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS!
— Tracy O'Connell Novick (@TracyNovick) April 14, 2021
HAPPY HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS BUDGET DAY! #MAEdu #mapoli #mabudget #FY22 pic.twitter.com/A6aWKVH2dH
Amendments are due by the end of the day on Friday.
I tweeted out a thread last night with some perspective on the main questions for Chapter 70, and then today, I tweeted out a thread of the K-12 accounts. I have been updating this spreadsheet as we move through the budget cycle.
Cherry sheets are not yet updated, as of this posting.
The major news today, of course, is that the Ways and Means budget, while it does implement a 1/6th step toward the Student Opportunity Act goals--the Governor's House 1 budget in January implemented a 1/7th step--but it did not, despite calls starting in January, use a hold harmless methodology for counting students.
Worcester, of course, has been talking about this all year, but this is actually a national issue; just today, we had new research advising districts to prepare for the kindergarten bubble coming.
Here's what it looks like for us in Worcester:
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| The enrollment drop is a $9.5M drop in the foundation budget. |
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| If we instead don't lose that, it makes a significant difference in the bottom line. Brian Allen's slides, of course, from our February presentation. |
which have experienced pandemic-related disruptions in their enrollment that negatively affect their chapter 70 aid for fiscal year 2022, or which have significantly increased their transportation needs in fiscal year 2022;
BUT the districts have to:
demonstrate a significant reduction in student enrollment on October 1, 2020, followed by a significant increase in enrollment on October 1, 2021, and which can further demonstrate that said enrollment volatility has materially and significantly impacted their chapter 70 aid distribution, and/or increased their required transportation costs for fiscal year 2022
And as a result, the state can't even start considering this until every district has their October 1 enrollment in, which, believe me, doesn't happen the first week of October.
And THEN they have to go through the enrollments and THEN they have to distribute the grants and THEN it's Thanksgiving and some handful of districts have gotten a little money.
You're not going to hire a teacher then; you're not going to split your overcrowded kindergarten then; you're not going rent or create new space in your building for your preschool then. That isn't when the funding is needed.
And how far is $40M going to go across the state? That isn't nearly enough.
This really is a gesture to show something was done without something materially being done.
I'm going to post this much tonight; I'll come back to add the account by account with some commentary later.
...which you can watch over here...
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| Cafeteria at Forest Grove Middle School, set up for student lunch |
Testimony at these, incidentally, is by invitation only, but you can email: SenateCommittee.Ways&Means@masenate.gov
...these people don't know anything about anything. They're incompetent. And, so, yes, they are getting a lot of our guys killed. But, also, they've emptied our treasuries. You know, we can't fix our roads. We can't fix the schools.
It's my dream of America with great public schools. I thought we should be the envy of the world with our public schools. And I went to such a public school. So I knew that such a school was possible. Shortridge High School in Indianapolis. Produced not only me, but the head writer on the I LOVE LUCY show.
And, my God, we had a daily paper. We had a debating team. Had a fencing team. We had a chorus, a jazz band, a serious orchestra. And all this with a Great Depression going on. And I wanted everybody to have such a school. And, yeah, we could afford it if we didn't spend all the money on weaponry.
The full interview, incidentally, is here, and is well worth reading.
Vonnegut graduated from high school in 1940. As he notes, he was attending school during the 1930's...the Great Depression.
What did we do in the Great Depression?
We built buildings like this:
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| Vernon Hill Elementary (Providence Street Junior High) Built 1931 |
We ran three sessions a day at Commerce High School, ensuring that people who might not have a job were getting education and further training for when jobs were available again.
High school dropout rates dropped.
Enrollment in public education rose.
While there were initial cuts, by the middle of the decade, the argument that public education was a center value of the country, and one that needed to be supported, had won out.
The Joint Committee on Ways and Means meets tomorrow. I wish I knew what words would convince those in charge of making decisions that the last thing one should do during the economic downturn from a worldwide pandemic is underfund public education.
Needs are rising, not dropping.
And the Governor's budget does not keep the commitment to our kids.
In the middle of a storm, you protect what is most vulnerable. At least you're supposed to.
I would like us, too, to be the envy of the world with our public schools.
During a hearing on the education components of Gov. Charlie Baker's $44.6 billion fiscal 2021 budget, House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Thomas Stanley asked state education officials if they anticipate a need for any additional funding associated with the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, or if the costs for schools to respond would "fall on the backs of the districts."
"I'm just thinking there may be a need to hire more people cleaning, and down the road, depending on how bad this gets, how many school districts are prepared to have the kids learn from home for a period of time, things like that," the Waltham Democrat said during the hearing at the Malden senior center.
Let's talk about school closures re COVID-19. It's a tough topic, scientifically and pragmatically. It's hard to estimate the benefits precisely. And closing schools can have costs, such as health care workers having to stay home, kids missing subsidized lunches, etc. 1/
— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) March 4, 2020
