The S.211 legislation I blogged about on Friday is not the only attempt to give additional local aid funding to the wealthiest towns. There was also an attempt to do this in the initial FY14 budget proposal, released by Governor Patrick on January 22, 2013.
Sen. Will Brownsberger wrote about this proposal on his own blog, expressing joy that an additional $631K in Chapter 70 would go to Belmont (11% increase) and $1643K to Watertown (a 49% increase). Both are towns in his district. That budget never came to fruition, but if it did $104 million had been allocated to give the 76 wealthiest towns in MA an increase of 10% or more in Chapter 70 aid. A large number of struggling towns that did not meet the same criteria used in S.211 received small increases of 1% or less. These include East Bridgewater, Maynard, Peabody, Marshfield, Westford, Tewksbury, Hull, Somerville, Weymouth, Orange, Billerica, and North Reading.
To her credit, Karen Spilka saw a problem with this. Her campaign manager responded to my previous post that this move would “direct money to communities that have previously received the smallest amount of state aid regardless of whether their need is greatest.” As the rich towns continue to get richer and outlying communities on or outside Rt. 495 continue to get poorer, I believe it makes sense to revisit the 2007 promise of more Chapter 70 money for the towns who need it least. I hope that Mr. Brownsberger can at least see that, but unfortunately, his public position on this issue is just as bad as Clark’s.
I could have supported many of the Governor’s tax increases (not a popular position in Dracut) but when I actually saw where the education money was going, it made it impossible to try to sell the Patrick budget to anyone in the Merrimack valley. (Except perhaps in Andover which was initially slated to receive a $2.2 million increase.) This is a fundamental issue for me, a deal breaker. It is going to be difficult for liberals to gain majority support for our economic agenda if middle class communities are not the primary beneficiaries of what government does.
Again, here is the same list of the 11 wealthiest school districts in the 5th CD, with Weston getting the least chapter 70 aid. I am from a town that the DESE said only provided $9,056 in net school spending dollars per student in FY13 and was less than 1% over foundation budget. The state has a Constitutional obligation to provide adequate education. Should Cambridge and Weston get the largest Chapter 70 funding increases (the Clark/Brownsberger view) or should some of that money be directed to towns like Lowell, Haverhill, Weymouth, Brockton, Lawrence, East Bridgewater, and Fall River that have trouble meeting the state’s Net School Spending requirement?
Net School Spending, per student
Weston – $17,831 (85% over foundation)
Cambridge – $25,594 (105% over foundation)
Lincoln – $19,391 (103% over foundation)
Lexington – $15,757 (64% over foundation0
Wayland – $14,793 (53% over foundation)
Watertown – $14,933 (34% over foundation)
Waltham – 17,562 (54% over foundaton)
Sherborn – $18,246 (70% over foundation including Dover-Sherborn)
Woburn – $12,689 (39% over foundation)
Stoneham – $11,685 (21% over foundation)
Belmont – $11,133 (21% over foundation)
Winchester – $11,694 (31% over foundation)
All Data from FY14 School District Profiles spreadsheet, from DESE:
http://www.doe.mass.edu/finance/chapter70/profile.xls
His email address is on his web page, and he does respond to emails.
Dracutfire- not every kid growing up in Waterown comes from a rich family. The east and west side of Waterown has public housing. Will brought back $1.6 million to Watertown’s public schools, they should erect a statue in the middle of Watertown Square for Will.
You make it sound so easy, just money alone will fix the education gap between wealthy and poorer communities. Keep dreaming.
The careful reader will note that at no point did dracutfire come close to implying this. As most of us are careful readers, no refutation is required.
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WHY IS DANFROMWALTHAM STILL HERE?
I love Will’s transparency and he does educate his constituents. I don’t see where he brought back the money to education, it looks like that was done by the Town Council which Browsberger never served on because he is from Belmont.
Here is a link to Watertown’s 8-year school spending history.
Yes they have b
In 2014, under the Governor’s proposal, Watertown and Belmont will both receive aid equal to 17.5% of their foundation budget. The bottom line is that Belmont receives an 11.03% increase or $631,130 additional dollars. Watertown receives an increase of $1,643,403 or 49.18%. See local aid totals here.
The Governor’s proposal was not approved so the $1643K was not approved. What was approved was a portion of the increase… $587K. So Watertown got a 17.57% increase, not a 49% increase, in Chapter 70.
I should note that my original figures were even larger because they included education aid plus other local aid. Here is the Brownsberger web page those numbers originally came from.
I’m not 100% sure which is the best practice or most fair.
I realize that raising these questions is extremely controversial, but Watertown is only 4.1 square miles according to city-data.com. Its proximity to Harvard University, Brookline, and Boston enables it to have $600 million in commercial property and a very high commercial tax rate of $27 per thousand. The Arsenal on the Charles office park, now owned by one of the backers of the Gabriel Gomez Senate campaign, alone generates more tax revenue than all the commercial buildings in my town which has 21 square miles!
If we start giving Chapter 70 bonuses to towns that already have this much commercial wealth, well isn’t that akin to giving a lot more rental housing vouchers (i.e. Section 8) to families making incomes of $70,000?
Its not all roses having a large commercial base. In Waltham, the population doubles during the normal work hours, traffic jams, lots of multi-family housing in both Watertown and Waltham, which could put pressure on the school systems. Cops have to patrol the bars on Moody and Main st.
Look at the number of teachers in Waltham in FY12 and FY13.
Look at the number of teachers in Dracut in FY12 and FY13.
Waltham went from 431 teachers to 455.
Dracut went from 232 teachers to 216.
Dracut’s budget is so low that the school system routinely turns down almost everyone who applies for an IEP and makes then get a lawyer in order to get basic SPED services. They cut the budget for textbooks and supplies by 62% in one year. It’s really messed up.
Do you really need 455 teachers? Your average class size is 16.1 and the state average is 18.8.
Seems to me that if you really need an extra cop on Moody st. you could remove a teacher or two. Or you could examine why the Admin budget for the school system grew by $502,000 between 2010 and 2011 — almost as large a percentage increase as what the Watertown school admin got.
And yes, I would agree that Dracut can raise a bit more in taxes than it does.
Exactly what my big sis had to do for my nephew in Marlborough, thankfully the lawyer did it pro bono and only billed her for filing fees. But it’s ridiculous. Not the towns fault either, but we should really decouple education funding from property taxes. It’s no surprise that the schools are inequitable otherwise.
Did this original post really identify Marshfield as a “struggling town?” Yikes.
I realize that this post is meant to be focused on the district in question, but it’s worth noting some other communities:
Springfield: 0% over foundation. That’s a zero.
Holyoke: 5.6% over foundation.
Lawrence: 3.7% under foundation.
North Adams: 2% over foundation
New Bedford: 1.6% over foundation.
Chicopee: 1.8% over foundation
The foundation budget is bogus. If so many communities feel that they need to spend so far above it, then this is an indicator that the foundation levels are too low – for the kids who don’t need as much help. They are at least an order of magnitude too low for kids who do need help.
Do you know how the foundation budget is computed? Beyond regional adjustments due to wages, and beyond common dollars for each student in common categories (i.e. # of elementary, # of junior high, etc)? If you have a kid in your district who lives in poverty, they get more money added to the foundation budget calculation. According to this PDF file, the foundation budget is increased by $3,393 for K-8, $2,743 for 9-12.
According to the same document, the per-pupil foundation budget average is $11,057 for urban centers [often high concentration of poor students] and $9,087 for residential suburbs [often high concentration of upper income students]. The residential suburbs then go and spend 20-100% more on their students.
Think about that for a minute. For starters, the commonwealth is claiming, through its foundation budget, that it only costs 22% more to educate a low-income student versus a high-income student. What does that translate to in concrete terms? The commonwealth is claiming that a class of 18 low-income kids needs the same educational resources as a class of 22 high-income kids – and that adding 22% more to the low-income classroom, allowing them to reduce the number of kids by 4, evens things out. That both should perform equally with that funding, according to the commonwealth’s formula.
Then, many high-income communities go and spend 20-100% more on their classrooms. The low-income communities can’t do this because they don’t have the money to do so. So these communities spend more on their easy-to-educate students than is spent on the harder-to-educate low-income students.
Our school funding is nothing more than a big joke. Its funding is seriously broken, and the simple fact that Springfield’s foundation budget – which is clearly inadequate when compared to its wealthy suburbs – exceeds its Proposition 2.5 levy ceiling should tell you how broken things are.
Keep in mind that some of the communities spending way above foundation are spending the excess money on things that have little to do with education. Waltham for example spends 10% of its foundation budget on Retired Employee Health insurance. Many communities spend 3% or less. The foundation budget should not count money for mowing the lawns equality with money for hiring teachers. I could offer other examples.
a bill to re-examine the foundation budget for the first time in 20 years.
http://www.massteacher.org/advocating/~/media/Files/PDFs/Advocating/JTF/jtf2013_foundation_budget_review_commission.pdf