28 November 2011

MassBudget: Massachusetts Foundation Budget's Core Education Program Underfunded

The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 significantly overhauled the formula for providing state education aid to the K-12 school districts in the Commonwealth. These changes included the creation of the state's foundation budget, a calculation of adequate individual baseline spending amounts for every district. The foundation budget has been in place for almost two decades and has not been comprehensively reexamined. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget), an independent nonprofit organization, recently reviewed the foundation budget and identified significant gaps between what the foundation budget says districts need for certain cost categories in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 and what districts were actually spending.

Major findings included in the MassBudget report include:

  • the foundation budget understates core special education costs (including staffing in-district programs and paying tuitions for specialized out-of-district placements) by about $1.0 billion,
  • the foundation budget understates health insurance costs by $1.1 billion (partly because the foundation budget did not foresee the dramatic increase in health insurance costs nationwide),
  • school districts have not implemented the low-income student program envisioned in the original foundation budget,
  • most districts hire fewer regular education teachers than the foundation budget sets as an adequate baseline, and
  • inflation adjustments have not been fully implemented, causing the foundation budget to lag behind true cost growth.

To access this Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center report, please visit:

MassBudget: Cutting Class: Underfunding the Foundation Budget's Core Education Program (Executive Summary)

MassBudget: Cutting Class: Underfunding the Foundation Budget's Core Education Program (Full Report)

Media report:

Boston Globe: Schools’ costs top state estimates (27 NOV 11)

Background information:

Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center

Massachusetts Association of School Business Officials

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