School finance commission prepares recommendations

After six public hearings around the state and a series of working sessions, the special commission charged with reviewing the decades-old spending standard in the state’s Chapter 70 school funding law will be preparing recommendations that would affect local contribution and school aid amounts for most municipal and regional school districts beginning as early as fiscal 2017.
 
The Foundation Budget Review Commission is slated to meet on May 5 and again in early June to discuss and vote on proposed changes to the Chapter 70 school finance law, which was enacted as part of the landmark 1993 education reform law. Commission members submitted more than 50 wide-ranging proposals for discussion in late April, including a series of recommendations from the MMA.
 
Many commission members, including the MMA representative, recommended that the foundation budget factors for school employee benefits and special education costs be adjusted to better reflect actual costs. Analyses by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and others have shown that these factors, as originally included in the 1993 law, now significantly understate costs.
 
Other recommendations include adjusting or adding foundation factors for:
• Low-income and other students in need of special services
• Expanded programs such as full-day preschool and extended-day programs
• Social services provided in schools
• Assumptions for teacher-pupil ratios
 
The commission, established in the fiscal 2015 state budget act, is charged with reviewing parts of Chapter 70 school finance law, with a focus on how the “foundation” spending standard is calculated.
 
The commission, with 21 voting members, is co-chaired by Rep. Alice Peisch and Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, the House and Senate chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education. Members include eight legislators, four members of the Executive Branch, and nine members representing other public education stakeholders, including the MMA’s designee, Attleboro Mayor Kevin Dumas.
 
There is also a six-member non-voting advisory committee.
 
• View MMA’s Foundation Budget Review Commission resource page