Thread by @TracyNovick

PS

Chapter 70 spreadsheets are posted: doe.mass.edu/finance/chapte…

#MAedu

READ THE TEXT (a few notes)

Enrollment not held harmless: "Overall foundation enrollment decreased from 938,085 in FY2021 to 907,506 in FY2022, a decrease of 30,579. Foundation budgets declined for 153 operating districts, including 29 districts with declines of more than 5 percent."

Health insurance inflation: 2.78%

Inflation on all else: 1.41%

hold harmless + $30 minimum per pupil increase

low income back to what we started last year with; higher of % in FY16 OR your direct certification numbers

State overall count then is up just over 30,000 students (extremely not equally distributed)

REALLY IMPORTANT POINT that I think is going to be a local nightmare:
(skip down to "required local contributions")

"Also, in FY2022, municipalities may deem an amount up to 75% of the total grant awarded to its local school district through the Elementary and Secondary Education Emergency Relief (ESSER) program

"enacted by the federal coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations act on December 27, 2020 (also known as ESSER II) to fund any increase in its local contribution requirement under Chapter 70

"but not more than the increase in required local contribution in FY2022 relative to FY2021.

"In the case of a municipality's increased required contribution as a member of a regional school district, a municipality may deem a proportional share of 75% of the regional district's total ESSER II grant award,

"equal to the municipality's share of the district's total required contribution, to satisfy the increase in its required contribution."

aka: this is the state saying, "oh that aid for schools? Your municipality can just decide some of it counts for local contribution to operating costs for next year."

I'd like to check the legality on this one, please. The municipal side can just "decide" that a federal grant "counts" as local contribution? #MAEdu

Ok, #MAEdu account by account:
(the K-12 ed stuff starts in 7009's)

$0 for EL learners in Gateway Cities (wasn't funded in FY21 either)
$2.5M for Early College (up from $2,475,000 🧐)

School safety (7009-6800) $0 (wasn't funded in FY21)

DESE operational (remember, this one tends to get earmarks stuffed in it): $11,796,261 down from $12,618,297, which is mostly "grants and subsidies"

Bay State Reading Institute $0 (was $0 last year)

METCO: $25,600,000 down from $25,807,324; which is partly salary, but it also now has $241,803 in "other"

oh, for Pete's sake...we're playing "let's merge line items and switch the money around" again; classic Baker education budget

And so we've got 7010-0033 (EL & literacy) merged with 7027-1004, which would be fine, save it overall drops about 50%

total line proposed is $4.3M; in FY21, the first was $2.4M and the second $6.1M

both civics education ($1M in FY21) and financial literacy ($250K in FY21) get zeroed out, "eliminating one time costs," which if nothing else is going to lend itself to some rhetoric, I'd think.

oh, add to that computer science education, which was $1M in FY21, zeroed out for this one

oh, and 7010-1192, which, bless them, they had the honesty to call "earmarks" is zeroed out, but it was for FY21, too.

another odd change:
School to career connection activities (7027-0019) drops from $6.3M down to $6M, but it's due to a $556,000 in salaries and wages, with a $156,001 picked up in the grant line

School-age in institutional schools and Houses of Correction (7028-0031) drops from $8.3M to $7.9M due to a cut of $750K in operating expenses (that line is zeroed out), nearly $300K cut in safety net (ah, a metaphor!), with $76,800 added back in for "other"

Adult basic education from $45,9M to $40,6M (sigh)"eliminated one time costs":
cut of $2M in salaries; drop of $200K in operating expenses; drop of $5M in grants & subsidies; increase of $406K in "other"

Regional transportation reimbursement (no doubt some of you already checked):
$82,178,615 to $75,856,506

(remember, this one is a reimbursement, so it is going to be WEIRD this year)

non-resident transportation reimbursement, level funded at $250K

McKinney-Vento reimbursement, cut $13.4M to $11M; it says "eliminate one time expenses" but projected spending is $13.4M on a reimbursement, and does anyone think we have *fewer* homeless kids than last year?

Advanced Placement math and science: cut of $3.37Mto $2.8M: "eliminated one-time costs" and all of the costs are wages and salaries.

School lunch program is level funded at $5,314,176;

School breakfast program is a cut from $5,489,906 to
$4,566,445; about $400K in salaries; $1.5M in safety net; a smidge in the grant; with $98K added in "other"

...which I don't understand...

CHAPTER 70 (of which we will talk more anon):

$5.28B (FY21)

$5.48B (FY22-proposed)
#MAEdu

This is looking like legit 1/7th implementation to me. (Left is Gov’s proposed last year for low income; right is Gov’s proposed this year.) #MAEdu

Total state target is 59%; hold harmless (on funding not enrollment) is in; $30 minimum per pupil increase; health insurance inflation 2.78%, all else 1.78%; low income count is FY16% OR direct certification count, whatever is higher.

Circuit breaker is up $10M ($357M to $367M), which maaaybe is moving to SOA implementation there, too?

Sorry, folks, but there is not another year of the $53M pandemic assistance. (We should be hearing about that coming out soon, though!)

military mitigation drops from $1,387,000 to $1.3M;
$100K out of grants & subsidies;
$13K added in "other"

ok, good news: charter school reimbursement
$117,357,887(FY21) to $143,500,000(FY22)

So moving on that part of SOA as well

educational data $572,449(FY21) to $1,078,231; increase is wages and salaries

MCAS: $31,912,916(FY21) to $32,235,269(proposed FY22)
Increase is in "other"

...you're going to be shocked to learn that @MassCIEA is zeroed out (was $200K last year)

Targeted Intervention from $15.8M to $12.5M by cutting the grant from $8.2M to $4.7M (what?)

Extended learning time from $9,513,185 (FY21) to $3,988,087 (proposed FY22) by...basically cutting the grant about that much.

Teacher retained revenue (which is basically how they can use the licensure funding) $2,299,999 to $2,300,000 :)

recovery high schools $2,674,000 to $2,600,000; cut is in wages and salaries

After and out of school grants cut from $14,253,138 to$2,577,017 and that's just...straight up cutting the grant (why? what is the thinking here?)

Safe and supportive schools $667,174 (FY21) to $510,684 (proposed FY22)
about $40K drop in wages; nearly $100K drop in grants & subsidies

Mass Academy back up to its usual $1.5M from $1.48M last year

YouthBuild grants got a bump last year to $2,976,000; back down to $2.4M

Mentoring matching grants from $990K to $1M

Student wellness school supports was $3.8M last year and it's being zeroed out

regionalization grants from $495,000 to $500K

Sex abuse prevention $597,500 to $600,000

The Governor needs a better boilerplate line; somehow I don't think that taking rural aid from 2,985,000 back down to $1,500,000 is cutting "one time costs"

I would take the Governor (and for that matter, the Secretary)'s professed concerns about learning loss if they didn't do things like cut summer learning from $1,411,322 (FY21) to
$500,000 (proposed FY22)

Anyway, here ends the K-12 accounts in the Governor Baker’s proposed FY22 budget.
Questions (or if you’d like me to look at something else), let me know.
Tomorrow: outside sections! #mabudget