Citizens’ Activism Builds Momentum for More Education Aid

By Representative James Eldridge

Over the past two months, constituents and town officials throughout the 37^th Middlesex District have made a strong plea for increased education aid, in order to restore the cuts made to Chapter 70 and other education funds since 2002.  Education is my top budget priority, and I have been working hard from a number of different angles to make sure this request becomes a reality, as we head into the legislative budget season.

On Tuesday, February 7^th, I filed a bill, House Docket 5041, An Act to Establish Minimum Education Aid for All Municipalities, a bill that proposes to phase in the "Acton Plan’s" minimum floor of $2,000 per pupil in state aid over three years. I have received many calls and e-mails from constituents in support of this bill.  However, it is clear that this proposal is not the cure all for increasing education aid to all the towns in the 37^th Middlesex.

My primary goal, as stated above, is to restore the cuts made to total education aid for each every community in Massachusetts .  For the towns of Acton, Boxborough, Harvard, Lancaster, Lunenburg, and Shirley, this means increasing Chapter 70 aid, the Special Education Circuit Breaker, regional and local school transportation, prison mitigation funds, payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) funds, and class size grant money.  That these programs or budget line items help provide state aid to all the communities in the 37^th Middlesex District reflects the district’s economic and geographic diversity.

A strength of the Acton plan is not just in the additional state aid that is brought to many communities, but in its vision for what we should expect from a state educational policy. First of all, Massachusetts must make a commitment that no community should have to pay for educating its children almost exclusively with the property tax. While the property tax is a stable source of generating revenue that will always pay for the majority of education costs in Acton and Boxborough, there needs to be a shift towards the state picking up more of the tab. 

This is the right thing to do not just because constituents pay a lot of income taxes, but also because the current system of paying for education creates divisiveness in our communities and establishes a significant financial burden on seniors, blue collar workers, and young families.

So how do we get there? It has become clear that this year state revenues have exceeded the Governor’s and Legislature’s predictions, so there are additional state moneys to spend. However, to give you a sense of how much the national recession hurt Massachusetts , total state revenues received in 2005 were equal to state revenues in 2001! Yet the needs of Massachusetts residents and families have grown since then. Over the past four years, there is no doubt that state aid for K-12 public education has been cut just as much as higher education, housing, environmental protection, and health care, and now needs to be restored.

The battle for restoring education aid has begun, but it’s important to realize that the Acton Plan is not the only proposal out there, nor that Chapter 70 is the only education fund looking to be increased. We need to restore regional school transportation aid, increase the Special Education Circuit Breaker, and focus on reducing class sizes in the younger grades. The Legislature must continue to support the state’s School Building Assistance reform, which has provided literally millions of dollars up front to towns and cities throughout the 37^th Middlesex District that were not expected for years.

We will all have to work together to solve this education gap, and recognize that one form of education funding is not the magic bullet to the needs of towns and cities and its citizens, and providing a great education for our children.