More funds needed
Published on December 4th, 2002
STONEHAM, MA - A faulty state education aid program annually costs the town of Stoneham nearly $2 million, according to members of the town’s chapter 70 committee. And while state officials and legislators have recognized the problem and admitted to the program’s flaws, Stoneham and approximately 100 other Massachusetts communities who are receiving inadequate aid will not receive the proper funding any time soon.
Stoneham’s chapter 70 committee, formed by town selectman Anthony Kennedy in the spring of 2001, has long lobbied for changes in the state’s educational reimbursement program. Specifically, the committee is pushing for changes in the formula the state uses in determining state aid, claiming that it does not properly consider the financial needs of each community. Instead, the formula is based on the amount of aid a city or town was provided the year before.
Perhaps two of the committee’s most significant accomplishments were convincing Jane Swift aid Robert Costrell of the executive office for administration and finance and state senator Richard Tisei of the system’s shortfalls. Yet, while the eleven-member committee has made considerable strides in convincing lawmakers that the town is being shortchanged, statewide budget cuts will prevent any corrective measures from taking place.
“We’re afraid that we could have the best story in the world to justify our position but the state isn’t going to be able to afford the type of equity we’re looking for,” said Kennedy of the group’s frustrations.
According to Stoneham superintendent Dr. Joseph Connelly, the chapter 70 reimbursement plan was flawed from its onset. Part of the landmark 1993 state education reform act, legislators created a foundation budget, or minimum spending requirement for each of the state’s school districts. Comparing that foundation budget to the actual dollar amounts cities spent on schools in the 1992 fiscal year, the state decided to base its yearly handouts on the percentage gap between the two figures.
The problem with the chapter 70 program for Stoneham resides in a hold harmless clause that prevented the state from dropping below that initial percentage handout in upcoming years. Because Stoneham spent closer to the foundation requirement than similar communities, the city found itself at an immediate disadvantage.
“To Stoneham’s credit, Stoneham was spending very close to that foundation level. As a result, Stoneham continued to receive around the same amount of money,” explained Connelly. “About 12 percent of what we spend on education is reimbursed by the state. Towns like us are getting upward to 20-22 percent. We were almost penalized for the amount of spending we made back then,” he added.
According to selectman Kennedy, such low rates of reimbursement have placed a serious strain on the town’s yearly budget, as money must be shifted from other programs to pay for education. And with proposals for the state’s 2004 fiscal year recommending that another $2 billion dollars be trimmed from the budget, these financial burdens will grow significantly.
“What’s going to be especially hard is the fiscal year 2004. Some legislators are proposing a 10 percent cut…if that’s the case, the town of Stoneham could lose an additional $1 million. We may have to do some layoffs…it’s not out of the question,” said Kennedy.
According to John Warren, a member of Stoneham’s finance and advisory board, it is exactly because of these fiscal difficulties that pressure must continue to be exerted on the state to correct the inequities in the chapter 70 formula.
“My feeling is that when it appears that state funds are limited, it’s more important than ever to pay special attention to how these funds are distributed,” said Warren.
And although Warren and the rest of the chapter 70 committee have not committed to any specific reforms, he does have several recommendations to improve the distribution of funding.
“You should determine state aid on a per pupil basis. What they do now is dole out huge sums of money that equal or exceed the money from the last year…There’s no correlation between those funds and declining districts or rapidly growing districts,” suggested Warren. “You also need to determine a standard of local wealth and distribute state aid inverse to the community’s ability to pay,” he added.
Both Warren and Kennedy claim that the lack of a wealth standard hurts communities like Stoneham because they are forced to pay for a foundation budget that exceeds the town’s yearly tax revenues for education.
“We think the state assumes that we have a funding effort that Winchester and Lexington have. But in reality, we have the funding that towns like Reading and Melrose have…Our state income, cigarette, and liquor tax dollars are going to Melrose and Wakefield and not coming back to Stoneham they way they should be,” Warren explained.
Despite all of the difficulties that Stoneham’s chapter 70 committee face, members like Warren and Kennedy feel somewhat optimistic about the future. Specifically, the duo points to significant achievements the committee has made in convincing lawmakers of Stoneham’s unjust plight, and applaud legislators such as Richard Tisei and Mike Festa for their help in proposing legislation to reform the state’s chapter 70 program.
The committee also hopes that it will be able to form a multi-community coalition that will work together to push for legislation. To date, the committee has worked with several communities like Framingham and Chelmsford in hopes of forming such a broad alliance. In fact, multi-communal meetings have already been scheduled to take place in Cape Cod this January and in Stoneham this February.
Lastly, Kennedy hopes that the incoming Romney administration will make chapter 70 reforms one of its top priorities, especially since the legislature declined to make such reforms after the education reform act expired in 2000.
“Maybe Romney will pick up the ball and say ‘hey, it’s time to implement these changes’…We’re hoping that with the Romney administration, Richard Tisei will from a rapport and that Stoneham can ride with that.”
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