The Massachusetts General Court may study its education formula during the two-year legislative session that began in January. Filed by Sen. Jason Lewis, the proposal could benefit gateway cities and less affluent towns.
“It is time, once again, to revisit the adequacy and equity of our school funding system,” argued Lewis, last session’s education chair. New committee appointments will be announced in weeks.
While hopeful, his outlook is tempered by political reality. Not all legislators share his view. Some are content with the status quo, citing the 2019 Student Opportunity Act to put off further spending.
Though the SOA is “making a major difference,” Lewis said it is “still not sufficient to address all of the fiscal challenges.” As The Banner previously reported, major recipients of SOA money are struggling.
Massachusetts’s 351 municipalities, alongside 88 regional and vocational schools, are counted as districts in the calculation for state school aid.
Context varies widely between regions, in size, “urban and rural, suburban,” he said. “We need to understand what their needs are in these different districts” and “what their local municipalities can afford to contribute to their schools.”
“The state is committed to providing adequate resources,” said Lewis. “That’s what we’re constitutionally required to do,” the state senator said of our “fundamental responsibility.”
Lewis sees an ally in state Senate President Karen Spilka. “This is an effort that she thinks should be a priority this session,” he said.
“We haven’t heard from the governor or Secretary Tutweiler.” Likewise, he continued, “We have not seen any evidence from the leaders of the House of Representatives that they believe” reforming the education formula “needs to be a priority.”
“We need stakeholders, including especially parents and students and teachers and school administrators, to advocate with legislators and with the governor,” he said. “Nobody should take for granted that there is agreement.”
“The state Senate is already on record,” said Lewis. Last year, the Senate budget had a similar policy proposal that did not survive conference negotiations with the House.
The commission proposed in Lewis’s latest bill would take on a broader mandate: both the Foundation Budget’s adequacy and “the local contribution side of the formula.” The latter “is broken,” he said. “We haven’t made any changes and updates to that part of the formula since 2007.”
Senator Lewis also hopes for recommendations on the costs of special education and a “modern high school education.” He is proposing “a school funding commission and not just a foundation budget commission.” It would still satisfy a state law that schedules such commissions once a decade or so.
“The intention when we drafted the law,” said Lewis, a leading advocate for the SOA, was that “every 10 years there should be a review of the foundation budget.” The last Foundation Budget Review Commission was created in 2014. The SOA was based on its recommendations. SOA funding hikes are scheduled through 2027.
“We are still not providing the level of resources that we said” public schools “needed back in 2015,” Lewis said. “We’re phasing it in.”
If passed, the commission report would arrive at the end of the 194th General Court’s formal sessions in the summer of 2027.
To allow enough time for the research, Lewis is “pushing for this legislation to move as soon as possible.” Ideally, that would mean an early hearing or inclusion in the general appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2026. The budget debate commences in earnest during school vacation in April.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey filed her budget proposal, House Bill No. 1, in January. It proposes a minimum aid increase of $75 per pupil.
Minimum aid is the final step of the Chapter 70 school aid formula. If the formula didn’t award a district much of a funding increase, the provision adjusts the aid up. That, Lewis said, is “a reflection of the fact that the formula is not adequate.” Minimum aid is an “override,” he said. “More communities are having to rely on essentially getting minimum aid.”
233 districts are splitting $37 million minimum aid increases in the FY26 Budget. Sometimes called “regressive,” minimum aid benefits some of the state’s wealthiest communities.
Another troubling data point is the number of districts that can afford more than the maximum local share, 82.5%, that the formula allows. 194 districts are at this Target Local Share Cap, up from the record number last year.
Some districts can’t afford to wait for deliberative lawmaking. “That’s going to take several years,” Lewis said.
“Right now, we have many districts that are having big budget gaps.” Their “tough decisions,” he said, could include whether to “cut programs” or “lay off staff.”
A second education bill he filed offers an interim solution. It would raise the percentage of the Foundation Budget that the state pays every year from 41% to 46% by 2030.
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