Mass. K-12 school funding approach creating chorus of complaints

Lawmakers on Monday pressed state officials to confront longstanding concerns with the state's K-12 school funding formula, signaling growing momentum for a long-delayed review.

For the first hours of the Ways and Means budget hearing on Monday, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle vented about the Chapter 70 school funding formula that they say is failing their school districts. They then turned to the officials seated before them, essentially appealing for solutions and asking what could be done.

Again and again, the answer pointed back to the Legislature.

"I think we're a couple years already past due," Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Pedro Martinez said, referencing a law requiring that the formula be revisited roughly every decade. "I encourage you ... to do what you've done in the past. To revisit Chapter 70, which again, from what I was told, it was every 10 years. I think we're overdue. And I think everybody's saying that. And we're all feeling that."

The exchange captured the central tension of the day — a feedback loop of frustration, urgency, and responsibility, as lawmakers decried inequities in a system they alone have the authority to rewrite.

Lawmakers described a fiscal landscape that they said is pushing school districts to the brink, with rising costs for special education, transportation and educator health care colliding with what they see as stagnant or inequitable state aid.

Sen. Jacob Oliveira pointed to stark disparities among the 12 school districts that he represents.

"The City of Springfield, City of Chicopee have seen in the last five years, 35%, 38% increases in their Chapter 70 allocation," he said during the hearing at the Lawrence High School Performing Arts Center. "My hometown, the town of Ludlow, saw during that same time period only a 6%" increases. He said suburban and rural districts are "impacted harder" under the current formula.

Rep. Margaret Scarsdale described effects in her North Central Massachusetts district.

"Teachers have been let go. Class sizes are increasing. Athletic programs and art programs are really being hollowed out," she said.

And for newer lawmakers, the frustration was no less acute.

"I am so frustrated that I can't even imagine the level of frustration that my colleagues have who have been asking for this review for, I don't even know how long," said first-term Sen. Kelly Dooner, noting that nearly all of her communities are considering raising their own property taxes to pay for school services. "What is it going to take?"

Audience members watching the hearing applauded at several points as lawmakers pressed the issue.

Rep. Todd Smola, whose district includes towns in Hampden and Hampshire counties, said lawmakers have agreed for years, the state's education funding formula isn't working.

"We are all being hit in the face with a shovel this year because we have never seen its equal in terms of local municipalities begging us for some sort of relief. So out of the gate, when we see the governor's budget, they're frightened as heck," Smola said, adding that Governor Maura Healey's budget proposal for FY 2027 isn't keeping up with inflation.

Interim Education Secretary Amy Kershaw, who also serves as early education commissioner, responded saying two opposing things are true,

"This is a really strong budget for education. Across the sectors and our districts, our families, our child care programs are struggling with energy costs and inflation costs that are unaffordable for them," Kershaw said.

Throughout the first hours of the hearing, lawmakers repeated how an unprecedented number of cities and towns and cities are asking residents to allow an increase in property taxes, with an override vote of the state's property tax law known as Proposition 2 1/2.

The result is a permanent increase in taxing authority. The purpose of the override is to provide funding for municipal expenses likely to recur or continue into the future, such as annual operating and fixed costs.

While commissioners acknowledged the urgency, their responses underscored the limits of their authority.

Martinez repeatedly pointed to the complexity of the formula — and the statutory framework underpinning it.

"The inflation measures that we are asked to compute, they're all in statute, so they can't be changed unless the statutes are changed," he said.

Pressed on rural aid inequities, Martinez added that even definitions embedded in law constrain administrative action.

"Massachusetts loves complexity, has their own definition of what rural means here in Massachusetts," he said, before returning to the broader point: "It just reaffirms what we've been talking about, which is, it's been, I believe, more than 12 years since there's been a look at Chapter 70, or there's been a commission around it. It's obviously long overdue."

That prompted a blunt rejoinder from Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa.

"Luckily, you are talking to the people who can change the statute on this stage," she said. "So if DESE has solutions as to how we can ensure those communities do not, from one year to the next lose funding that they desperately need, I would love to hear it so that we can work on those statutory changes."

Interim Education Secretary Kershaw echoed a similar dynamic — one that has defined the conversation between the administration and Legislature for over a year.

She said the administration looks forward to sharing an ongoing funding study on local contributions to education funding and "following your lead" on next steps regarding Chapter 70.

The phrase mirrored remarks made last year by former Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler, who told lawmakers the administration would not spearhead a Chapter 70 overhaul — setting up what Sen. Jo Comerford on Monday called a "frustrating back and forth."

"We know we have to bring it through the Legislature," Comerford said of a potential foundation budget review commission. "That has been the back-and-forth, unfortunate, frankly, frustrating, back-and-forth we've had with Secretary Tutwiler. It's a little dance that we've done, painful for our districts to watch."

She added, "We will bring it, I hope, with my colleagues… to your door, and then we will partner with you. Because things have to change."

State statute says: "Upon action of the general court, there shall be a foundation budget review commission to review the way foundation budgets are calculated and to make recommendations for potential changes in those calculations as the commission deems appropriate; provided, however, that the commission shall be established not less than every 10 years." The last commission review ended in 2015.

Comerford noted that Gov. Maura Healey "acknowledged her willingness to enter into" a Chapter 70 Foundation Budget Review Commission, when she testified before the Ways and Means committees last month.

Healey said at the time: "I'll say that my team stands at the ready to engage in further conversations about this and collaboration, about a best way forward, understanding the really challenging circumstances that districts are facing."

Complicating matters is the timing of a long-awaited state study on local contributions, ordered as part of the fiscal 2026 budget and not due until the end of June.

Sen. Pavel Payno pressed the commissioners on when lawmakers would see this report, saying it would help them draft the fiscal year 2027 budget they are writing this spring. Martinez replied they do not expect to finish it until the end of the fiscal year in June, when it is due.

"I think a lot of us were, well, I'll speak for myself. I think you know that there was hope that this information, or some of this information, would be shared with us as we start the budget process," he said.

Department CFO Bill Bell pointed out that the Legislature gave the department until June 30, 2026 to complete the report.

Bell said they are not prepared to offer recommendations until the analysis — which includes extensive municipal finance data and time to receive public comment — is complete.

"Year after year, we hear it's going to take more time," Dooner said. "Meanwhile, our school districts are desperately struggling, and there's really no recourse."

The debate is unfolding during a period of transition in state education leadership. Healey's education secretary since the start of her administration, Tutwiler, recently stepped down, and his replacement has not yet begun. At the same time, longtime Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Jason Lewis — a principal architect of the Student Opportunity Act — does not plan to seek reelection next year.

Those shifts come as policymakers confront what many described Monday as unfinished business from that landmark law.

Despite differences in geography and party, lawmakers struck a notably unified tone: the formula is not working for a broad swath of districts, particularly rural and minimum-aid communities.

Commissioners did not dispute the underlying concerns. Instead, they emphasized partnership — and process.

"The sense of urgency is not lost on us," Martinez said.

NEPM's Jill Kaufman contributed to this story.