by Keith McCormic
Greenfield, MA – Despite the bitter cold last Saturday morning, more than three dozen school and municipal leaders, legislative staffers, and interested citizens crowded into the Greenfield Middle School library to discuss school and town finance. Organized by the Franklin County School Committee Caucus (FCSCC)- an alliance of area school committees, the three seminars sought to help leaders better understand state funding formulas, promote town and school cooperation, and identify opportunities to save money while improving the quality of services provided.
Opening Remarks
Glenn Koocher, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) and MASC presidents Dorothy Presser and Kathleen Robey opened the event, updating attendees about the recent national School Committee conference in D.C. as well as the current state budget situation. They also reminded school leaders that March 29 is the “Day on the Hill” for local school committee members to meet with state leaders.
The trio noted that while the Governor’s budget has been presented, there are still about 8 weeks until house budget comes out. He encouraged school committees and citizens to be especially vocal in support of education over the next few weeks. Koocher also let attendees know that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is expected to give an address about health care next week. There is a possibility that he will support a bill that allows towns and schools to unilaterally change health care plan designs.
Paul Dunphy, a senior aid to state Rep. Stephen Kulik (D-Worthington) offered a legislative viewpoint. He noted that the Governor’s proposed Chapter 70 Foundation Aid budget is about $3.719 billion. While this looks like more than last year’s Foundation Aid, it is actually less than previously when expiring federal grants to schools are taken into account.
Dunphy also noted that Part II, Chapter V, §2 of the Massachusetts Constitution, lays upon our Commonwealth the following mandate:
“Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people.”
Dunphy cited landmark legal cases- MacDuffie v. Secretary of the Executive Office of Education (1993) and Hancock v. Commissioner of Education (2005) in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found that state bears primary responsibility for education. He noted that currently, towns pay about 51% of the cost of educating a child, while the state pays only 31%. He questioned whether this amount was sufficient and left that to the attendees to answer.
Dunphy also reported that Rep. Kulik cosponsored a bill to perform an adequacy study to see if the Foundation Aid formula is outdated. It was noted that the bill was unlikely to pass because such a study would likely mandate that the state raise taxes to increase revenues for education spending.
Demystifying School Assessments and Chapter 70
Michael Idoine and Jim Slavas of the Wendell Finance Committee delved into the arcane topic of school funding formulas. Idoine talked about the impacts of towns’ contributions to regional districts and showed how a per-pupil model brings costs in line with aggregate wealth. He offered sample projections for several area regional schools districts, showing how each town’s contributions would change under the proposed new model.
Jim Slavas walked the attendees through the underpinnings of Chapter 70 Foundation Aid. He used scatter diagrams to show how communities’ AGVs (A result of Aggregate Property Values and Income Values) fell on a continuum. Most towns hovered around $150 to $200 thousand. A few rose into the millions of dollars, with Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard scoring over $3 Million.
He then demonstrated the concept of a town’s Foundation Budget, which is a minimum spending threshold that the State deems appropriate for educating the students in a school system. When more students enter or leave the system or other factors change that cost, the Foundation Budget rises or falls.
The state then compares the town’s Foundation Budget against their AGV to determine how much state aid would be needed to meet that minimum expenditure. The state explains this process online at http://finance1.doe.mass.edu/chapter70/chapter_10_explain.html. Slavas noted, however, that towns are never required to pay more than 82.5% of their Foundation Budget, so very rich towns like Chilmark still receive state aid.
Slavas stated that this was based on the premise that the law established a “flat tax” for education, a concept that is described by the Education Department on their website as well. He then alleged that the 82.5% local burden cap is having the opposite effect- transferring wealth from poorer towns to richer towns, an amount equal to about $1.31 billion annually. He encouraged attendees to call for elimination of the cap or for the state to take the excess mandated contributions and use it to maintain education aid in these troubled economic times.
Improving Relationships Between Town Governments and Schools
Atty. Tupper Brown from Montague FinCom and Gill-Montague Regional School Committee (GMRSD) Chair Jeff Singleton talked about how Gill and Montague bridged town-gown divides to negotiate a shared five-year plan for their public schools that led to their first voter-approved budget in recent memory. Singleton described the process of engineering an affordable assessment for towns based on a financial plan for the towns.
Atty. Brown then spoke about the financial compact that the towns crafted. He showcased the precepts section, which he felt was key to building consensus. He also highlighted the importance of getting all the parties at the table throughout the process.
GMRSD Superintendent Dr. Carl Ladd stressed that the real cost of education is not determined simply by the bottom-line or by the end goals. There is a give-and-take that both sides have to undertake to provide good education whilst respecting the financial reality of the towns.
During a question period they acknowledged that freezing wages and benefits was critical to the cost savings and that unions were not involved in the process of developing the plan. Singleton said that school districts simply can’t survive if their fixed costs rise 5% annually, so controlling cost growth was important for every district.
Promoting Cooperation and Sharing Resources
Greenfield Town Accountant Michael Kociela spoke about the various issues facing local towns and schools. With audience input, he explored the current School Choice funding scenario. Dr. Susan Hollins, Greenfield’s superintendent described how some other states handle school choice and how the Massachusetts system sometimes causes duplication of expenses, especially in the high-cost area of special education programs.
Several audience members talked about the other side of the coin, for instance Petersham is paying money into the Mahar Regional School District, but many of those students do not attend the school. Kociela brought the discussion back around to the differences inherent in the model and how fixed expenses impact the equation. Jed Proujansky from Pioneer Valley Regional School District applauded Greenfield for fighting school choice through programmatic improvements.
Jeff Singleton suggested that regionalization might help the fiscal situation, but also noted several different obstacles to successful regionalization. He cited the way that the Franklin County Technical School assesses towns as an example of how the process is not transparent enough. Greenfield’s Keith McCormic asked if allowing voters to elect the Tech School board would be a good first step.
Mike Langknecht from GMRSD raised geographical issues to regionalization and Proujansky seconded the sentiment, saying that schools would probably close and students would get stuck on buses for hours on end. Wendell’s Slavas said that geography is important but cannot be used as an excuse to avoid innovating new solutions. He encouraged districts to seek out new solutions and to design programs from the ground up based on today’s realities.
Kip Fonsch from Leverett schools promoted the idea of pushing the legislature to eliminate legal roadblocks to interdistrict collaboration. Dr. Hollins illustrated this principal by showing how current laws were prohibiting Greenfield and Gill-Montague from equally sharing a new special education program.
Kociela segued the discussion back into discussing how schools and towns can collaborate both internally and externally. He highlighted existing regional energy collaboratives to boost buying power and reduce costs. He also talked about Greenfield’s shift to centralized maintenance and how that is saving the town significant money.
Kociela then challenged local education leaders to identify how they are currently sharing educational resources. Hollins named several places where administrators are working together to share information and reiterated how current law makes it harder to share programs between districts. Kevin Courtney, former Superintendent of PVRSD and a coordination for CES talked about places where the county was trying to explore larger joint bidding for maintenance needs.
Kociela mentioned an idea from Liz Gilman, Greenfield’s School Business Manager to create a central transportation clearinghouse that would enable district sharing to maximize the efficiency of bus routes. He also showcased how total education expenditures are often much higher than the district budgets because of town-related costs like buildings and retirement contributions.
Mackenzie Bailey from Erving schools asked about joint food bidding. Emily Robertson from Mohawk talked about their use of the LPVEC to save money on bread by locking in the same price as Chicopee. Genevieve Fraser- a concerned citizen who is working with the Franklin County School Committee Caucus to promote use of locally-raised food in school lunches, invited everyone to the Caucus’ April 2 seminars on local farm-to-food initiatives. Leverett’s Kip Fonsch also highlighted the Franklin CDC’s new blast freezer for getting local produce into schools. Keith McCormic from Greenfield declared that using local food in schools was not just about nutrition and lowering costs but about economic development, which he identified as the most locally-controllable way of increasing tax revenues and school budgets.
