Division of Local Services (DLS) of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue has released the final state aid amounts based on the recently passed and signed state budget.
Our total state aid monies are up about $130,000 over the $7,822,174 received last year.
ALERT TODAY FROM THE MASSACHUSETTS MUNICIPAL ASSOCIATION ABOUT THE BUDGET –
We will get more that was originally proposed by either the Governor, the House or the Senate.
HOUSE AND SENATE INCREASE KEY EDUCATION AND MUNICIPAL AID ACCOUNTS BY $128M ABOVE THE ORIGINAL BUDGET FILED IN JANUARY
PLEASE CONTACT THE GOVERNOR TODAY TO SUPPORT LOCAL AID FUNDING AND KEY MUNICIPAL ISSUES
July 22, 2019
Dear Osler Peterson,
On Sunday evening, July 21, the fiscal 2020 state budget conference committee that has been meeting since early June released H. 4000, the House-Senate compromise budget bill that is expected to be approved later today (Monday, July 22) by the Legislature.
Funding levels for many municipal and school aid accounts are higher in the Legislature’s final budget than in the recommendation (H. 1) filed by the Governor in January, providing $128 million more for key municipal and education programs. The Governor has 10 days to review the budget bill and make decisions on what to approve and what to veto or send back with proposed changes. Legislators will then have until the end of formal sessions in this calendar year (in November) to consider whether to accept or override those changes.
Please call the Governor’s office and ask that he approve the municipal and school aid accounts in the Legislature’s budget bill, including those funding levels that are higher than what he recommended in January, when the outlook for state finances was less positive than it is today.
You can find the Chapter 70 and UGGA amounts for your community in Section 3 of H. 4000, beginning on page 271 of the printed version of the budget, or on page 279 of the downloadable PDF.
Click Here for a Link to the Legislature’s Budget
Later this week, the Division of Local Services will notify communities of their final Cherry Sheet receipts and assessments. When available, Cherry Sheets will be posted on DLS’s website.
Click Here for a Link to the Division of Local Services Final Cherry Sheet
Here is a summary of the key priorities and local aid increases for cities and towns:
Unrestricted General Government Aid (UGGA)
In a continuing victory for cities and towns, H. 4000 appropriates $1.129 billion for the Unrestricted General Government Aid (UGGA) account, an increase of $29.7 million over the fiscal 2019 level of funding. The 2.7 percent increase reflects the policy of increasing general municipal aid at the rate of growth in state tax collections reflected in the consensus tax forecast. This revenue sharing policy has been adopted by the Governor and the House and Senate since fiscal 2016, and is a key priority of the MMA’s.
Chapter 70 School Aid and Local Contributions
In a major step forward for many communities, H. 4000 appropriates $5.176 billion for Chapter 70 school aid (7061-0008 and section 3). This is a $281 million increase over the current fiscal 2019 funding level. This will fund the basic requirements of Chapter 70 education aid, and makes progress by more aggressively implementing the recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission, including higher funding for health insurance and special education costs, and significant increases in funding for communities with a high number of economically disadvantaged students. The budget continues to fund the target share provisions for those communities where the local contribution exceeds the target share level, and funds minimum aid at $30 per student. This Legislature’s budget provides a Chapter 70 increase of $68M above the amount originally proposed by the Governor in January. The community and district Chapter 70 funding levels match the distribution numbers passed in the Senate budget in May. We recognize that most communities will continue to remain minimum-aid-only districts, in spite of this impressive and appreciated statewide Chapter 70 increase, and the MMA will continue to prioritize higher minimum aid funding going forward.
Special Education Circuit Breaker
In a significant win for cities and towns, H. 4000 fully funds the Special Education Circuit Breaker Program at $345 million. This is the program through which the state provides support for services provided to high-cost special education students. This is critically important, and represents a $25.7 million increase above last year’s general appropriations act. The Governor had proposed level-funding, and legislators in both branches proposed increases intended to move toward full funding. The final version of the budget matches the Senate’s funding level.
Charter School Impact Mitigation Payments
Cities and towns will need to review their final Cherry Sheets to determine how much of the mitigation payment funding they will receive. The Legislature’s budget makes several changes to the overall program. First, they change the current 6-year reimbursement program (100-25-25-25-25-25) to a 3-year framework (100-60-40), apparently keeping the current cost-based approach, instead of moving to a number-of-students approach as proposed by the governor (MMA strongly supports the cost-based method). Second, they include a $7.5 million allocation to those communities whose net charter school tuition costs exceed 9% of net school spending AND whose Chapter 70 aid is a lower percentage of their foundation budget than the statewide average. Third, they include a $7.5 million allocation to be distributed by DESE to communities who have experienced high and sustained growth in charter school enrollments.
Again, it will be necessary to review final Cherry Sheet numbers to see how H. 4000 funds each district’s charter school mitigation needs.
Regional School District Student Transportation
Rural School Aid
The Legislature’s budget includes a $2.5 million account to provide one-time funding for rural schools, many of which are struggling with fixed costs and declining enrollment. H. 4000 includes language that would require DESE to make recommendations for future funding in fiscal 2021.
McKinney-Vento Homeless Student Transportation
Payment in Lieu of Taxes on State-owned Land
Shannon Anti-Gang Grant Program
Community Preservation Act
The Legislature’s final budget increases recording fees at the Registry of Deeds to raise revenues for the Community Preservation Act (CPA) Trust Fund. This would provide an estimated $36 million in new funds to more than double the base percentage match for all 175 CPA cities and towns beginning in November 2020. In addition, H. 4000 would set aside up to $20 million from the fiscal 2019 budget surplus (if any) to supplement the matching funds that will be distributed in the fall of 2019.
If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact MMA Legislative Director John Robertson at 617-426-7272 ext. 122 or jrobertson@mma.org.
Please Contact Gov. Baker and Ask Him to Approve the Legislature’s Local Aid Increases as Described Above.
Thank you very much!
John Kelly’s Medfield Meadows went from being the Mega-B to being the most recent, welcomed Local Initiative Program (LIP), that gives the Town of Medfield another year of safe harbor from unfriendly 40B’s per the notice received this week from the Department of Housing and Community Development (copy attached below). Our affordable housing – Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI) – #s have increased from about 4.5% when we finally woke up, to 8.29% today including Medfield Meadows. If the planned Rosebay on Pound Street and the Mayrock development at the Legion site are permitted, we will be very close to the 10% permanent protection threshold. However, those threshold numbers will adjust upwards based on the 2020 census’ number of housing units in town, so we will need even more SHI to stay fully protected.
Kudos to the Affordable Housing Trust for shepherding the town to a place of safety.
Posted in Affordable housing / 40B, State
From Newton Mayor Fuller’s weekly email – DCAMM gives Newton a better deal than Medfield was offered for the former Medfield State Hospital site –
Posted in Medfield State Hospital, State
This is from the Division of Local Services (DLS) e-newsletter. USE THE LINK BELOW TO COMPARE TOWNS – I just learned that the per capita income in Weston is $351K, which makes me want to move there and have a big family –
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Databank Highlight of the Month: Updated Community Comparison Report The new and improved Community Comparison Report is now up and running. It can be found on the front page of the Municipal Databank. If you have used this report in the past, you will be in for a treat. The updated report is sleek, streamlined and very user friendly. Still drawing on 65 data elements, each of the seven easily accessible tabs on the top of the page pulls the information from multiple data sources onto one page. This provides a snapshot of your data removing the often tedious task of scrolling and scrolling found on the old report. Using any of the 12 different search criteria on each heading refines your search across all the tabs. If you are looking to see what communities with a population between 30,000 and 50,000 with an annual budget between $50 million and $90 million, you just enter that criteria and it will carry over to each tab. Since the search criteria carries over, the Community Comparison report essentially does the work for you. In the report you can quickly extract the most current available comparative municipal finance and demographic data for multiple communities, it eliminates the frustrating task of opening numerous spreadsheets to sort, cut and paste data to compare. A simple click and you can download your information into Excel. Please contact us if you need any help using the application atdatabank@dor.state.ma.us. |
Posted in Financial, Information, State
The Senate actually seems more willing than the House to look at the revenue side of the equation, and seek out new revenue.
Please Call Your Senators Today and Ask them to Support Key Municipal and School Aid Priorities!
May 1, 2019
Dear Osler Peterson,
Now that the House of Representatives has adopted their proposed fiscal 2020 state budget, all attention has turned to the Senate. The Senate Ways & Means Committee is developing a separate spending plan, and we expect to see a Senate budget committee recommendation within the next two weeks. This is the time to call your Senators to emphasize the importance of full funding for municipal and school aid priorities!
This is a great time to check in with your Senators – so that you can ask your Senators to contact the budget committee before the Senate Ways & Means budget is released. After the budget is released, Senators will be scrambling to file amendments, and then the debate will occur during a whirlwind of activity over 3 or 4 days.
The MMA testified at the joint House and Senate Ways & Means Committee’s budget hearing in Fall River on March 18, and our budget testimony provides excellent talking points on the major municipal and school aid priorities.
Please click here to read a copy of MMA’s budget testimony
Please talk to your Senators about these budget accounts and any others that might be a local priority.
Last year, there were almost 1,200 proposed amendments filed when the Senate debated the budget. The Senate Ways & Means recommendation may not be the last word on the Senate spending plan, but individual Senators will have their greatest influence from now through the end of the floor debate. That’s why it is so important for you to contact them now to discuss the budget items that matter most to you.
Here are some of the priority highlights to discuss:
UNRESTRICTED GENERAL GOVERNMENT AID (UGGA) – Ask your Senators to fund the UGGA account at $1.13 billion, which would provide an increase of $29.7 million, or 2.7 percent, consistent with the “consensus” state tax revenue growth forecast. The House and Governor’s budgets do this.
REFORMING AND INCREASING PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING – There are a number of Chapter 70 funding issues:
SPECIAL EDUCATION CIRCUIT BREAKER – Ask your Senators to support full funding of the Special Education Circuit Breaker Program. (The House underfunds this account by approximately $15 million, while the Governor’s budget is $20 million short.)
STUDENT TRANSPORTATION REIMBURSEMENTS – Ask your Senators to support full funding for: 1) reimbursements to regional school districts; 2) the transportation of homeless students under the McKinney-Vento program; and 3) transporting out-of-district vocational students.
PAYMENTS IN LIEU OF TAXES (PILOT) – Ask your Senators to support increased funding for the Commonwealth’s obligations and commitments to the program for Payments in Lieu of Taxes for state-owned land (PILOT), at a minimum including funds to hold communities harmless from changes in property valuation.
Please Call Your Senators Today to Support Municipal and School Accounts!
Thank You Very Much!!
Posted in Budgets, Financial, Selectmen matters, State
Email today from Representative Denise Garlick to Kristine Trierweiler announces the Medfield state aid amount in the House’s Ways and Means Committee’s proposed budget that has just been released (Rep. Garlick is now the Vice-Chair of Ways & Means).
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I just wanted to share with you the preliminary local aid numbers for the town of Medfield:
Unrestricted Local Aid-$1,539,280
Increase of $40,468 from FY19
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Medfield Select Board member
I started this blog to share the interesting and useful information that I saw while doing my job as a Medfield select board member. I thought that my fellow Medfield residents would also find that information interesting and useful as well. This blog is my effort to assist in creating a system to push the information out from the Town House to residents. Let me know if you have any thoughts on how it can be done better.
For information on my other job as an attorney (personal injury, civil litigation, estate planning and administration, and real estate), please feel free to contact me at 617-969-1500 or Osler.Peterson@OslerPeterson.com.
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