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Notes provided by: Colleen Kirby Cho Notes from Q & A with Jim Marzilli, January 2004 Hi all, Several people requested that I let them know what we discussed at the Q & A with Jim Marzilli. We had 7 attendees. First some history. In 1993 Ed Reform became law and the court required that spending must be equalized for students across the Commonwealth. Much money shifted to lower income communities. Education spending increased enormously from 1991 through funding to cities and towns. In addition health care and prison funding increased alot. All other services during this time period were cut including environmental and housing. Starting in 2003 aid to education got cut. We reduced our education spending drastically, more than any other state in the nation mainly due to a decrease in governmental revenues collected. There are two ways to calculate education statistics across states:
In MA, we are 11th highest among the 50 states considering state + local per pupil spending at $9300 as of 2001 and 44th among the 50 states for spending on public K-12 education considering % of total personal income. However MA does spend a higher % of funds on classroom instruction, they are 4th in the nation. As for capital spending, during the 60's, 70's, 80's and in the early 1990s we were spending very low amounts and our schools were in poor shape. In 1995 we were 20th in capital spending per pupil and 40th in terms of total personal income. This year the Governor's proposed Chapter 70 aid is well below what it was 2 years ago. Local aid was hit hard last year although this year it is proposed to be held harmless (meaning a level amount of funds, not a level service budget). The new circuit breaker for Special needs is underfunded this year by $80M so local governments will still have to bear the brunt of this unfunded mandate. This circuit breaker is a new law that would pick up any costs for an individual special needs student whose costs are greater than $30,000 per year. Unfortunately the chance for raising the income tax still doesn't look good. Our no tax sentiment as evidenced by the near passing of the referendum a few years ago and the $1.5 billion of tax cuts we've had recently have brought us from being a state with the largest rainy day fund to being one with the largest debt. Another reason it is not politically possible to increase the income tax this year is because it is an election year and the legislators are facing the controversial same sex marriage issue. The recently released Governor's proposed budget shows an increase of $135 M over last year for education this is only 3.6% below FY2003 budget. But the House and Senate are dubious about the ability to cover the cost of this budget. Therefore they are holding joint House and Senate hearings about this "balanced" budget. The governor proposes he will pay for services through savings from efficiencies rather than depending solely on revenue generation. There is concern that the elimination of programs that are called "waste" are really necessary programs that will not be able to be made more efficient. There is also concern that it will not be possible to collect the new fees of $750M instituted (for example getting poor prisoners to pay trial costs). The goal is to have hard numbers from the total budget no later than June 1st. They are also hoping to determine a guaranteed minimum level of local aid spending so that towns and cities can determine their local budgets. If the Governor's budget numbers are wrong a lot of poor children and seniors will suffer as the result. Since this budget has promised to hold local aid harmless, it is likely that this constituency is strong enough to make sure that the legislature holds this funding at this level. There is still a $1.5B shortfall to meet a full service budget even with this proposed budget. Right now revenues in 2003 are coming in higher than expected. If this keeps up we may have up to $0.5B surplus for FY03. This money may go back into reserves to build that back up since we spent so much reserve money in the past year. The cost of local government is going up faster than 2.5%. Pensions and health care costs are still increasing so we will be losing services even with a hold harmless budget for local aid. Property taxes are actually of benefit for school funding because they are stable, easy to collect and not as regressive as many say. It is not clear that renters feel the brunt of property tax increases and there are circuit breaker laws to protect poor seniors. A positive note is that some corporate loopholes were closed last year (such as combined reporting) and another one of Jim's pet bills to close another corporate loophole (opportionment) may also pass this year. Maybe the legislature will be willing to look at restoring the income tax rate in FY06. Attendees discussed other options localities can consider such as a Proposition 2.5% override and trash fees. Past fiscal mistakes in town were also discussed such as that we didn't assess our houses at the market rate before 2.5% was passed which meant that it's first few years we actually had to decrease our taxes to get under the ceiling. Also the unfortunately poor terms of NESWC and Minuteman which ended up costing Arlington more than ideal. Also our lack of a commercial base and lack of an ability to grow. Also that commercial assessments have gone down relative to house assessments, while 2 family house assessments have skyrocketed. What can we do here in Arlington this year about state funding for education? Remain vigilant about any budget changes during the process. Be happy about what we are getting. Work to convince your friends in other communities of how awful it is that our government is cutting back services in all areas and how painless it would be to restore the income tax. Get letters published in the Boston Globe and Herald to the same effect. These are my notes, taken to best of my ability and are no way official minutes or notes of any of the individuals sited in my report. If I got anything wrong please let me know and I'll fix them. SPOT
offers these notes as a service to the community. |
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