But the legislature could have kept aid to every district at the higher of the governor’s numbers or last year’s downpayment formula’s numbers, at a cost of just $15 million above the governor’s budget. This means the cuts for 101 the Globe’s reported 83 locales resulted from some other changes. My hunch (not verified by close review of the numbers; I’ve confirmed the legislature’s change roughly matches proper downpayment figures for 86 locales) is the legislature tossed out the modified “downpayment” formula for a savings of $9 million, and then applied $14 million towards reforming the foundation budget. That is to say, I think the legislature added on two things, each costing about $15 million, and took away one to save $9 million. Plus some other tweaks, perhaps.
So now, the question is, will the governor ask the legislature to apply the larger of the two, bumping aid up by another $15,811,156 Hmm. 15.8 – 9 != 0 , according to my calculations? Or will the governor’s fiscal discipline message rule the day?
My two cents is the legislature’s numbers are fairer, in that they more uniformly apply a 30% share of target share reform aid, and were promised earlier. I don’t know about the foundation changes, but believe their intention is to address No Child Left Behind subgroup issues, that is, more progressive than the governor’s initiative. Sorry, governor.
My other two cents is that I don’t think either the governor or legislature even have the regulatory part of target share reform on their radar screens this year. Towns that are members of regional school districts with the misfortune of having “required minimum contributions” above their target local share are effectively paying a surtax on their regional school assessments, with 107 towns paying at least a 10% surtax, and 29 paying a 25% to 55% surtax.
The state can accelerate regulatory reform for many of these towns, by focusing “effort reduction” on out of the money effort rather than in-the-money effort. Target share reform is writing down $500 million of excesses in “required minimum” contributions. About $200 million of that has to be replaced by increases of state aid, but another $300 million does not; that is the “out of the money” part, and that also accounts for most of the regional school surtaxes, applied at different rates for different towns, with no basis in ability to pay.
Reducing “out of the money” excess effort would let the state accelerate target share reform for required minimum contributions without triggering as much aid as the current formula and without pushing more locales into the part of the formula where big increases will show up in the “baseline inflation plus enrollment changes” next year and in future years.
So why not go for a reform that accelerates regulatory relief, at lower cost to the state this year and with greater fiscal discipline going forward, as well as making future aid allocations to cities and towns more uniform and more predictable?
Thanks for the analysis. Your charts highlight the seeming “randomness” of House 1.
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Am I correct in understand the red or purple dots as being communities receiving less than their target aid share?
represent actual aid allocations, for the two proposals.
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They are plotted as a fraction of the foundation budget, a simple way to get everyone on the same page.
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The steady darker line represents the increase for each of these 180 locales that would bring them to target share, so you can compare the dot with the place on the line above the dot to see how a town’s aid change this year compares with its goal. Perfectly moving towards target local share would make the dots all line up as a curve representing 30% of that darker line. Variations represent other things making the numbers move. The graph does not show the other half of towns statewide, where required contributions are already at or below target share, and thus which by definition already receive “foundation aid at full phase-in” since foundation aid fills in to bring every district up to at least the foundation budget.
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I do exclude about 45 towns from each plot, places with very small local school budgets – often for locally placed special education – where enrollments can double or halve in a single year, and where the state’s formulas can go berserk. These obscured the dominant trends in each. Consider this more or less like noise reduction. I excluded the same set of towns for each plot.
You can find the legislature’s numbers on the MMA website .
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The state’s original spreadsheet can be found at The DOE
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I plugged the legislature’s numbers into the state sheet, and changed the models to confirm what the legislature & senate did on downpayment aid, and do the plotting. I’d be glad to review individual town numbers with anyone who asks, send email to massparent at hotmail dot com.
Thank you very much for the data.
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Five year funding plans sure can be a mess when revenues don’t match expectations. If it isn’t possilbe to get all districts to their target aid with the 59/41 split, then it seems reasonable to me that we alter the assumption. For example, could we get all communities to target aid if we assumed local districts would pick up 64% of funding? At least then it would be a more even application of the funding formula.
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this year is make sure not to put more localities into the part of the curve where they get baseline foundation aid next year, by only actually reducing “excess effort” that is out of the money for next year. The current formula will put about $10 million of aid into baseline figures next year, I believe, and this means $10 million less to dole out to the 180 locales waiting to uniformly get towards their target.
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I’d accelerate the “out of the money” effort reduction, to exceed the legislature’s original regulatory relief goal of 40% effort reduction without triggering as much state aid. This would help about 40 towns participating in regional school districts that have to effectively pay a surtax not matched by other member towns.
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They could tweak the formulas to aim at a different target, but I think they selected what they picked to assure that all of the 220 towns that are able to at least pay their target share are treated uniformly. That helps for both coalition and equity reasons, I believe.
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I think the plan begun last year was fairly agressive in terms of fiscal expectations, but fairly slow in terms of meeting a target that has been established. For fiscal discipline, I think my first goal above matters a lot (reducing “out of the money” excess effort, rather than in the money) but I don’t believe it is on the table this year. I did wind up with a plot that looks almost identical to the legislature’s plot using my model, but believe the individual towns had some fairly significant differences. But then, I came it at $209 million, instead of $220.
And we have overrides next week!
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AND – has the Lege decided to stop stiffing us on Transportation money yet? Especially with soaring gas prices?
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It burns me up, because regions are pure school numbers, not a town deptartment.
But no discussion of how required minimums affect towns.
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For example, Orleans pays a 36% surtax on its regional assessments – mandated by the state to pay $9243 per student towards foundation budget, though the target share is $6788; while Brewster, also target share at $6775, only pays $7568.
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Don’t know if your regional has an agreement to split up the excess required minimums, if they do, you’re fine, but if any one town in the regional decides to stick with state regulations, Orleans picks up the bills.
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I agree about the regional transportation issue, but for about one in three towns that are members or regional schools, the regulated spending requirements are what has been driving up local property taxes.
My town’s school enrollment is increasing very rapidly, yet our aid is being cut from H.1. Do these numbers take enrollment into account?
I can look up the numbers if you like, and tell you what part of which formula you’re in, as best as I can tell without access to the revised spreadsheet.
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How much did the numbers go up in H.1. compared with last year? In most cases where numbers are down in the legislature’s numbers by more than a small fraction, I believe it is because the H.1. numbers had gone up significantly more than comparable ability to pay and burden locales. But even the reduced numbers are likely at least in line with locales receiving among the largest increases in the state.