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MARS Board Meeting Minutes
September 13, 2005
Present: Bruce Kaiser, Bob McIntyre, Peter Dewar, Michael
Fitzpatrick, Joe Kurland, Mindy Kempner, Cliff Fountain, Maureen Marshall, Gene
Carlo, Dee Dee Niswonger
Most of the meeting dealt with the Chapter 70 formula. There may not be a
formula this year, although there is reputed to be a great deal of conversation
about Chapter 70 in the State House. The Foundation budget is seen in the State
House as a constant, an aspect of educational funding which won’t go away. What
is needed is to re-look at the categories of the f. budget and ensure that all
areas of a real budget are included in the master budget, which is what the
Foundation budget is. The idea here is that the master budget would include all
aspects of funding, even if in some districts columns were left blank because
that district didn’t need, or qualify for, that funding. Thus regional needs
would be covered in the master budget, and in the case of municipal districts
those headings would remain blank. Such a foundation budget might allow funding
for real costs such as health insurance, and in time it might mean that all new
money coming into regions would not have to go to cover these non-educational
costs. Analyzing the foundation budget for the real costs is needed. The current
foundation budget is very inadequate. For instance, the state standard for
support staff needs study and adjustment; aides and secretaries shouldn’t go
into the same category. There are many such examples. These areas need to be
discussed within the educational community before going on to the legislature.
The tie between the foundation budget and schedule 19 means that it is essential
for districts to get their schedule 19 filed in a timely fashion and it is also
essential to check the claims on each budget from each municipality.
A point stressed several times is that local lobbying is never wasted time. It
is very worthwhile to work in each district with your elected legislators.
Getting a school district’s name into the consciousness of Reps. and Senators
means a great deal. Individual stories can sometimes be more powerful than the
facts and figures which do work so effectively behind the scenes. It is vital
that each district inform it’s own elected people about their needs and
worries—keep the legislators constantly informed and involved with your
district. It is time very well spent starting now and going right through the
whole budget year. This is the pathway to effectiveness—we are all, even in the
aggregate, a very small bit of this huge discussion about Chapter 70. It may be
about education, but educators won’t be the decision makers. If we don’t utilize
the avenues available to us, that is work with our own local legislators, we
won’t have any voice at all. 78% of our population does not have children in the
schools.
SPED transportation real costs are greater than the real costs of transporting
all the other students in the state, both regional and municipal: this is in
real dollars that transporting about 10% of the students who receive SPED
transportation is greater than that for the other 90%.
We will be attending Rep. Cleon Turner’s Regional School Caucus with great
interest and the hope that broader understanding of regional issues will result
from this new group. Thanks to Rep. Turner for his interest in regions.
Save harmless dollars have been a dependable part of districts’ aid for a long
time. The money in save harmless was never broken out by the state until last
year, when the Governor’s office gave it a separate heading, and indicated a
total of about $264 million. Of that is about $120 million that is regional
school aid. There is a long history on this. When the 1993 ed reform bill went
into place, regions were denied regional incentive aid (Chapter 71) but promised
that what they got at the time would go into the base and be part of their aid
in the future. The sum has not increased but it has remained. Not only was
incentive aid part of this, but EEOG money and other historical funding sources
also. We must make it clear that regions can not afford to lose this aid, and,
and this may be very hard to do, that regions need to be aided on top of this
historic aid. Regions do not have the same obligations that municipal district’s
do: they have much greater obligations. It is very difficult for regions to get
along today without the funding streams promised in the past because of these
increased obligations i.e. health care, insurances, maintenance, etc.. But,
because regions receive this save harmless aid, the state thinks regions get
enough and don’t need more. It looks like regions get more than others, but that
is because what regions have to do with their aid is so different from what
municipal districts have to do. There is a tight connection here between
maintaining save harmless, re-thinking the categories of the foundation budget
to include regional needs, and working with the state to develop/restore a state
wide vision of regionalization.
Gov. Romney has indicated that health insurance costs are the result of local
decisions and not a problem the state needs to fix; local communities do.
However, by law, health insurance percentages are fixed once granted, and the
years when we were required to meet dollar for dollar costs did not help. The
problem is more complicated than just the locals’ fault.
Regions should be congratulated for doing a fantastic job managing their
finances during very stressful times. As inflation has increased all the cuts
have removed inflationary increases from regions.
The DoE is developing a proposal that appears to take us back to the winners and
losers pattern. MASS did not do that with their proposal. Measuring wealth is
very difficult in this new situation with the perceived changed social-economic
status of many communities. Since incomes have not kept up with real estate
values, the apparent value of communities is greatly skewed. People paying taxes
on this real estate did not buy it at the value now attributed to it. Do you
measure wealth by currently assessed real estate value or by current income? Or
by some other measurement? Wealth measurement is the key to a workable formula.
At the same time the idea that costs fluctuate across the state, that teacher
salaries or benefits in one area are substantially different from another area
holds no water. There is very little difference statewide. The use of the wage
adjustment factor has allowed the state to “fiddle” with aid amounts very
unfortunately. We all have the same standards, same audit processes, etc. The
Foundation budget needs to reflect this similarity and the 18 items in it (or
more as needed) need to adequately express real costs.
The pothole money is being granted this year only to districts that meet very
specific rigid perimeters, thus disqualifying many.
Please expect an e-mail later in the month with confirmation of the date of the
Oct. meeting that has been changed.
Respectfully submitted by Dee Dee Niswonger
For More Information Contact:
Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools
P.O. Box 334, Williamsburg, MA 01096-0334
Tel: 413-268-3607
E-mail:
niswonger@comcast.net
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Massachusetts Association of
Regional Schools