Many people are talking about the need for the state to provide more education funding, but not everyone is talking about how the state would pay for it.
Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Executive Director Mary Bourque told the Gazette the state’s formula to distribute education funding “is not working because costs are now exceeding any amount of money that is in the formula.”
She said that schools are facing increasing costs due inflation and other factors, and that her association would be “advocating for increases in most of the areas of the governor’s budget.”
In a 2024 analysis, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center said state education aid for local school districts — known as Chapter 70 funding — did not increase proportionately with inflation in the prior school year.
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The center said that adjusting state education funding for inflation would require $465 million in additional funding annually.
Anthony Clough, a policy analyst for the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said the Student Opportunity Act is a seven-year commitment that slowly raises the amount of funding that districts who have more students with higher levels of needs receive. He said that after the next school year, the Student Opportunity Act will be fully implemented and that the overall ratio of funding different districts receive would not change further.
The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center said, in its 2024 report on state education funding, that “the SOA is adding over $875 million annually in funding to K-12 schools, particularly concentrated in the Gateway Cities” such as Taunton.
However, the report said that the increased funding had been “eroded” by higher levels of inflation.
“Over the past two years, however, unprecedented inflation levels (that were unaccounted for in the formula) have eroded the value of the SOA and will continue to depress funding each year moving forward,” the report said.
Increasing state education funding to account for inflation would “require $465M in additional annual funding,” the report said. However, that funding would go to both the gateway cities that are benefiting from the Student Opportunity Act as well as other school districts as well. Of the $465 million in additional funding, more than half of that — $248 million — would go to Gateway Cities, the report said.
