As state legislators, for the first time in 18 years, reconsider the formula that determines how the state funds education, representatives from local school districts shared their views on how this can best serve underfunded districts in western Massachusetts.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education joined the Division of Local Services for a virtual hearing Tuesday evening focused on school funding — specifically the local contribution components of the state’s Chapter 70 school finance formula, which the state Legislature has tasked both parties with reevaluating.
Educational and municipal leaders from across the state testified at Tuesday’s meeting, all of whom believe changes to the formula are necessary.
“Chapter 70 increases do not keep pace with actual increases from the inflation costs. Cities and towns are grappling with unsustainable increases in transportation, health insurance, utilities and other cost drivers,” Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Executive Director Mary Bourque said. “In many areas, student enrollment is declining, yet the needs continue to grow. Therefore, districts receive less funding while the actual costs of serving students increases.”
Certain aspects of the formula, such as that which examines residents’ incomes and factors these into the Chapter 70 funding that municipalities receive, were scrutinized.
Acknowledging that the need for a change to the formula was evident by the number of districts asserting that they do not receive adequate funding, Doug Selwyn, who chairs Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution’s education task force, spoke to the rising costs of living and running a school district.
“We need to recognize that the massive underfunding in insurance costs, in transportation costs, especially in rural districts, special education costs — we know that local contributions don’t come anywhere near meeting the shortfalls from the state,” Selwyn said. “When the schools are desperately struggling for funds and the town twists itself in knots to come up with those funds, that leaves the towns struggling.”
According to a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education handout on the current Chapter 70 formula, which has been in place since 2007, the state covers an estimated 41% of all school costs, with cities and towns covering the remaining 59%.
Municipalities are also capped on how much they contribute at 82.5%. Some officials argued that if this cap were removed, wealthier communities could contribute more, thus reducing the burden on more cash-strapped cities and towns.
Orange Finance Committee member Kathy Reinig argued that the current Chapter 70 formula puts working-class communities at a disadvantage, as the contribution rate included has led to an inequitable burden on towns that can’t afford to fund schools, while paying for towns that are wealthy enough to afford their schools.
“We’re one of the poorest towns in the state, and as a result, compared to what we need to spend to have a reasonable, functioning education, we can afford the minimum contribution — what we can’t afford is our actual contribution,” Reinig said.
It was mentioned at a recent Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District School Committee meeting that the fiscal year 2025 budget was 52% over net school spending, equating to about $1.2 million. The required local contribution, coupled with state aid, equates to the district’s net school spending requirement.
“We’re in a death spiral at the moment,” Reinig continued, adding that Orange had to empty its free cash fund and two-thirds of its stabilization fund to cover education costs. “I do not know that we are going to be able to create a 2027 budget that is under our revenue projection. It is impossible from what I see at the moment.”
Part of the state aid formula considers a school district’s enrollment and how many students each town has, based on its ZIP code — a process that Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School teacher Boris Samarov said forces rural school districts to consolidate to share and, consequently, dwindle their services.
“I didn’t hear about Chapter 70 until I moved to western Mass, and that’s significant. … In the hilltowns, this funding is a very big deal to us,” he said. “How funding is currently calculated makes it more expensive for rural districts to support town schools. This pushes rural districts to consolidate, and that’s exactly what’s happening in our schools now.”
Amherst Town Council President Lynn Griesemer echoed other constituents’ comments, asserting that she believes the formula is “broken” and noting that, after suffering from a significant fire that displaced 230 people earlier this month, Amherst is pitting basic emergency service funding against schools during its fiscal year 2027 budget process.
Griesemer said Amherst is not the only community in Massachusetts that has to make difficult decisions like this.
“We’re not completely broke, but we’re well on our way to being there,” she remarked.
Northampton High School senior Amelia Durbin also testified in support of a change, noting that the current formula is older than she is.
“In my time as a student at Northampton Public Schools, I have witnessed and experienced a crisis in public education and, as we’ve heard tonight, that is shared across districts,” she said. “My municipality remains in a deepening financial deficit due to the state’s systemic underfunding of minimum aid and declining enrollment at school districts like mine.”