Soter: ‘Huge appetite to change Chapter 70 funding formula’

First-year rep.talks potential overhaul with school officials from Blackstone, Millville

BLACKSTONE — Freshman state Rep. Michael Soter (R-Bellingham) told a gathering of town and school officials from Blackstone and Millville Wednesday that bipartisan momentum is gathering on Beacon Hill to overhaul the state’s school funding formula.

“There is a huge appetite to change the Chapter 70 funding formula,” Soter said at a meeting of the Blackstone-Millville Region- al School District Committee, which held a round table discussion on the upcoming school budget with members of the Boards of Selectmen and Finance Committees from the two towns.

Soter of Bellingham, who was elected in November to the 8th Worcester District state representative seat – which represents Bellingham, Blackstone, Millville and Uxbridge – told the gathering that both Gov. Charlie

Baker and the Legislature are committed to taking another look at overhauling the funding formula.

Chapter 70 is the common name for state aid distributed to schools throughout Massachusetts. The money is distributed to school districts based on set funding formulas. Through the annual budget process the state Legislature and the governor set the overall amount of Chapter 70 funds, but the specific distribution to individual school districts (the apportionment) is determined by formula and is non-discretionary.

At its core the Chapter 70 formula is based on something called the Foundation Budget, which is designed to be a “model school budget” that quantafies the minimum level of funding for each school district. The goal of the formula is to ensure that every district has sufficient resources to meet its Foundation Budget spending level, through a combination of local property taxes and state aid.

The state’s foundation budget exists to create a sense of equity across the Commonwealth. However, the communities funded at or below 100 percent – those being asked to do more with less – struggle to provide the key components of a strong education as compared to the wealthier communities in Massachusetts who have the ability and means to fund their schools at a much higher percentage.

School officials in Blackstone, Uxbridge and Bellingham have been struggling under the formula for years, saying Chapter 70 education aid doesn’t address the increases in special education services; out-of-district transportation; contractual costs around salaries; health insurance increases; and the cost of technology.

Soter says the time has come to overhaul the formula once and for all.

“A huge majority of representatives and senators realize that Chapter 70 is antiquated and needs to catch up with the times,” he said. “Come April we are going to to start talking about the state budget and the biggest discussion we are having now is Chapter 70.”

Efforts to rewrite the formula collapsed at the end of the Legislature’s formal session last July, but Baker has signaled that he plans to revisit the issue and file a bill to rewrite the formula, a move that appears to have backing from House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate President Karen E. Spilka.

Groups including the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance and the MTA last month joined forces as the Fund Our Future Coalition, calling for lawmakers to pass legislation in 2019 that would increase funding for public higher education by $500 million and public prekindergarten through grade 12 schools by $1 billion.

“This is a major issue in all of the towns I represent,” Soter said. “We need drastic change. Something has to give.”