Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
The Honorable Aaron Michlewitz, House Chair
The Honorable Michael J. Rodrigues, Senate Chair
The Honorable Ann-Margaret Ferrante, House Vice Chair
The Honorable Joanne M. Comerford, Senate Vice Chair
The Honorable Kip A. Diggs, House Assistant Vice Chair
The Honorable Paul R. Feeney, Senate Assistant Vice Chair
The Honorable Todd M. Smola, Ranking House Minority Member
The Honorable Patrick M. O’Connor, Ranking Senate Minority Member
Joint Committee on Ways and Means
State House, Boston
Dear Chair Michlewitz, Chair Rodrigues, and Distinguished Members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means:
On behalf of the cities and towns of the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Municipal Association very much appreciates your strong support of local government. We look forward to working with you and your colleagues in the House and Senate in developing and finalizing a state spending plan for fiscal 2026 that reflects your continued commitment to a strong state and local partnership.
In every region of Massachusetts, cities and towns rely on a strong and supportive state-local relationship to maintain critical services. With a tightly capped property tax that limits municipal revenues, cities and towns require predictable and adequate state revenue sharing in order to provide essential education and municipal services, ensure safe streets and neighborhoods, and maintain local roads and vital infrastructure. While this revenue sharing model is always important, it is especially critical this year with the uncertainty at the federal level.
We are writing today to provide you with information on important priorities in key municipal and school aid programs, and ask that you incorporate these requests into the fiscal 2026 state budget bill that you are preparing for House and Senate debate in April and May.
Unrestricted General Government Aid
Cities and towns across the state are asking the Legislature to provide a strong and effective commitment to revenue sharing by increasing Unrestricted General Government Aid (1233-2350) for fiscal 2026 by at least 3%. This would reflect a difference of $10.4 million above the Governor’s House 1 proposal.
In recent years, the Legislature has made critical investments in UGGA, which directly supports each and every community in Massachusetts. UGGA provides essential funding for vital municipal and school services, allowing communities to deliver core services to residents and businesses. As the state continues to address a statewide housing crisis, it is worth noting that underfunding UGGA exacerbates the challenges regarding housing affordability due to an overreliance on property taxes. Being mindful of the state’s cautious fiscal outlook for 2026, we respectfully ask for your consideration of an UGGA increase of at least 3%.
UGGA is the only source of discretionary local aid that cities and towns use to fund foundational services for the residents of Massachusetts, including public safety, public health, public works, senior, youth and veterans services, water and sewer services, solid waste disposal and recycling collection, park and recreation services, libraries, and much more. Local aid funding is needed more than ever, as communities are struggling to balance their budgets and maintain these services. With inflationary pressures, expensive collective bargaining contracts, health insurance increases, and the looming potential loss of federal funding, communities are faced with costs that are rising much faster than local revenues.
Chapter 70 School Aid
The MMA strongly supports funding for Chapter 70 school aid (7061-0008) that matches the promise of the Student Opportunity Act (SOA). Through the SOA, the state committed to investing an additional $1.5 billion in Chapter 70 education aid, intending to reach its goal in fiscal 2027. We applaud the Legislature in maintaining its commitment to funding the SOA.
We support fully funding the Chapter 70 program to reflect funding year five of a six-year rollout of the Student Opportunity Act. The Governor’s House 1 budget proposal would keep the SOA on the intended schedule, and the proposal allows for $75 per pupil in new Chapter 70 aid for minimum aid districts.
While this is a positive first step, it means that out of the total Chapter 70 increase of $420 million in the Governor’s proposal, 27% of school districts would be receiving 91% of that increase. This leaves the remaining 73% of school districts to share $38 million of new aid.
We are grateful for the support that the Legislature has given to this critical issue in recent years and urge consideration of a minimum aid increase to $150 per pupil, which would positively impact 245 of 318 (77%) school districts statewide. With the costs associated with educating students rising at a pace much faster than Proposition 2½, this investment of $39.5 million over the Governor’s House 1 proposal would make a meaningful difference for minimum aid communities.
Each school district continues to rely on Chapter 70 school aid for existing annual operating expenses. As such, we respectfully request that minimum aid be set so that all districts receive an increase of at least $150 per student in fiscal 2026. Higher minimum aid will be necessary to ensure that no school district or student falls behind.
Special Education Circuit Breaker
We support full funding for the special education circuit breaker program (7061-0012), through which the state provides a measure of support for services provided to high-cost special education students. This is an essential program that provides critical funding to assist all school districts with the increasingly burdensome and volatile cost of complex and expensive special education services.
As pandemic-related learning loss continues to impact the educational needs of students, districts that cannot meet students’ needs must place students in expensive, out-of-district, private schools that can meet those needs, or districts will be in violation of state law. As a result, districts have fewer resources to educate students who remain in-district. This is a cycle that continues to depress in-district general and special education resources, further exacerbating the issue of needing to send students outside of their district.
We ask for full funding of the state’s share of eligible educational costs with the schedule included in the Student Opportunity Act, which added transportation expenses as an eligible cost. The Governor’s proposal would provide $532 million for this account and would also leverage $150 million included in the fiscal year 2025 surtax surplus supplemental budget filed in January. When combined, the Administration affirms that this is the total amount needed for fully funding Special Education Circuit Breaker. We ask you to confirm the full funding requirement using the most recent data available from DESE, and close any funding gap that may result from an updated analysis.
Charter School Impact Mitigation Payments
As a start, we support funding the charter school impact mitigation account (7061-9010) to reimburse school districts at 100%, which fulfills the state’s statutory obligation under the Student Opportunity Act. The sharp increase in assessments levied on local school districts to pay tuition to charter schools has imposed a major financial burden on cities and towns, a problem made more acute as the state grants additional charters and existing charter schools expand. Rising charter school assessments are forcing local public schools to cut programs and services to make up the difference.
Because the great majority of K-12 students attend local public schools, this means that the diversion of Chapter 70 funds to charter schools has a directly negative impact on the vast majority of schoolchildren. Even fully funded, the charter school impact mitigation account is still insufficient to address the deep cuts facing many districts. After receiving mitigation payments, many communities and school districts may still see their charter assessments increase more than their total new Chapter 70 aid. For this reason, we ask that you implement a “circuit breaker” system to prevent any “net negative” situations, so that each community or school district receives a minimum aid increase, after charter payments, based on the number of students remaining in the traditional, non-charter, public school system.
Student Transportation Reimbursements
Funding to assist cities, towns and school districts with the cost of transporting schoolchildren is another critical priority, and we respectfully urge full funding of the state’s reimbursement obligations.
Regional Schools: We respectfully urge full funding for transportation reimbursements to regional school districts (7035-0006). House 1 proposes $116 million for fiscal 2026 and, according to the Administration, that proposed funding reflects a 95% reimbursement rate. These reimbursements are vital to all regional districts and their member cities and towns, particularly in smaller communities and in more rural parts of the state. We respectfully ask that you increase funding for this key account to reflect higher transportation costs for communities and to move the state to its full reimbursement commitment.
McKinney-Vento: Under the McKinney-Vento program (7035-0008), municipalities and school districts are providing costly transportation services to bus homeless students to schools outside of the local school district. House 1 would allocate $28.6 million to this program, reflecting level funding. We ask you to confirm the full funding requirement using the most recent data available from DESE, and close any funding gap that may exist, especially in light of the ongoing emergency assistance shelter crisis.
Vocational Schools: In addition, we support funds to reimburse communities for a portion of the cost of transporting students to out-of-district placements in vocational schools (7035-0007), as mandated by state law. This account recognizes the significant expense of providing transportation services for out-of-district placements, as these students must travel long distances to participate in vocational programs that are not offered locally. House 1 provides $6.2 million for this line item, which represents fully funding this account. We respectfully ask that the House and Senate support full funding of this account.
Rural School Aid
The Student Opportunity Act established a special commission to study the long-term fiscal health of rural districts, as the special financial and operational challenges facing rural districts were not addressed in the legislation. The Commission on the Fiscal Health of Rural School Districts issued its report, “A Sustainable Future for Rural Schools,” in July 2022. We support the recommendation in the report to fund the rural schools assistance program (7061-9813) at $60 million. We appreciate the progress that the Legislature has made in increasing this account in recent years, and we respectfully ask that you fulfill the recommendation in the Commission’s excellent report.
Payments In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT)
We support full funding of the Commonwealth’s obligations and commitments to the program for payments in lieu of taxes for state-owned land (PILOT) (1233-2400). The House 1 proposal funds this account at $54.5 million, an increase of $1.5 million over FY25. According to the Administration, this amount holds municipalities harmless from recent valuations, but the account essentially remains level funded. We appreciate the progress that has been made on PILOT in recent years and ask that you continue to support this important funding for municipalities and consider the different ways in which municipalities are impacted by state-owned land.
Surtax Funding for Local Roads and Bridges
During the past two fiscal years, we have witnessed the exciting opportunities that the voter-approved surtax has provided for dedicated funding to support the significant education and transportation needs of the Commonwealth. Of particular importance to municipalities has been the inclusion of supplemental aid for local roads and bridges (1596-2428). More than 30,000 miles of roads are under municipal control, which represents nearly 90% of all road miles in the Commonwealth. Over the past two fiscal years, the Legislature has provided $145 million in supplement funding from surtax revenue for desperately needed investments to support local roads and bridges. We respectfully request that you continue this critical funding, with an appropriation of $125 million, as part of your fiscal 2026 budget proposal. The funds will be put to use immediately by cities and towns to repair crumbling local roads, advance critically needed projects, and improve safety on our neighborhood roadways.
A Local Aid Resolution To Facilitate Timely Local Budget Decision-Making
Cities, towns and regional school districts need timely notice of the main municipal and school aid accounts in order to prepare and approve forward-looking local revenue and spending plans. We respectfully urge state leaders to secure an early agreement on our requested Unrestricted General Government Aid (UGGA) amount for next year, as well as addressing Chapter 70 minimum aid needs.
An agreement would set the stage for a consensus Local Aid Resolution and a commitment to minimum municipal and school aid amounts just as budget decisions are being made at the local level. This would avoid the very difficult budget challenges that occur for regional school districts and member cities and towns when required local contributions are not finalized until mid-July, and would facilitate budget planning during times of uncertainty.
Summary
This is a critical time for cities, towns, and local taxpayers. We know that you and your colleagues in the House and Senate continue to be outstanding partners for communities across the Commonwealth, and we look forward to working with you on these key municipal priorities. The critical investments highlighted above will lessen the local budget pressures being felt in every corner of the state, and protect the essential local services that build our economy and ensure a high quality of life for our residents.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to have your office contact me or MMA Deputy Legislative Director Jackie Lavender Bird at jlavenderbird@mma.org at any time.
Thank you very much for your support, dedication and commitment to the cities and towns of Massachusetts.
Sincerely,
Adam Chapdelaine
MMA Executive Director & CEO