Necessary Cuts

The Governor recently announced additional 9C budget cutting measures to address projected short falls in revenues. In his message regarding those cuts, he indicated that he would not, at this time, make cuts to local aid* or chapter 70* funding to cities and towns. Unfortunately, he did propose cuts to regional school transportation. Though regional school transportation is not a direct Chapter 70 cut to regional schools, it is a cut to regional school education budgets because of the governance of those districts. Dennis/Yarmouth Regional School, Nauset Regional School and the Cape Tech Regional Vocational School will all suffer reductions in the hundreds of thousands of dollars because of those anticipated cuts.

Because those cuts to regional school transportation directly affect the education budget, I drafted a letter to the Governor asking him to reconsider those cuts or to investigate the possibility of funding regional school transportation with additional stimulus money. Sixty three other legislators in the House and the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, signed that letter with me.

Many legislators and the Governor continue to miss the fact that regional school governance is different than non-regional school district governance. In non-regional schools the local town or city government is directly linked to the school administration. Regional school districts are separate and distinct government entities unto themselves and have no link to the communities that make up the region except in the area of budgeting. A non-regional school district can go back to its governing town during a school year and amend the budget or seek additional funding. A regional school district, by law, cannot adjust it’s budget after the budget has been voted at town meeting. The only avenue for funding shortfalls in regional school transportation is for regional school districts to cut their education budget. The result of the Governor cutting regional school transportation is that the education budgets of regional schools will have to be cut. Even if the regional school districts could go back to their towns for additional funding, the towns could not make up the serious shortfalls without cutting into their own budgets. The end result is that, though the Governor does not intend to cut local aid and Chapter 70 funding, he does both for regional school districts.

With this additional cut to regional school transportation, that budget item has been reduced by 63% from last years budget number.

What is?

9C cuts: Under the Massachusetts law, when the budget is likely to be out of balance due to insufficient revenues, the Governor must reduce the budget in certain line items that the administration has control over in order to bring the budget back into balance. The provision of the law that establishes that requirement is General Laws, Chapter 29, section 9C.

Chapter 70: Chapter 70 is the section of Massachusetts law that covers school districts and, especially funding. Regional schools are regulated by both Chapter 70 and Chapter 71.