The Massachusetts Secretary of Education was in Northampton this week — doing a lot of listening as students and teachers talked school funding. They made their case for reform as costs continue to rise and state dollars come up short in the region’s more rural districts.
“Our expenses are outpacing our revenues, and we are rapidly approaching a breaking point … or perhaps, for many of us, we are already there,” said Dr. E. Xiomara Herman, superintendent of Amherst-Pelham Regional Public Schools, speaking at an event featuring Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler Tuesday.
Held at Northampton High School and put on by the Northampton Youth Commission, Herman and about a dozen others addressed Tutwiler, describing how transportation, special education and other costs are only increasing as state funding lags.
“This year, our health insurance costs rose by 19.92 percent. Through tough negotiations and redesigns we were able to bring that down to 14.2 percent – but that still results in an increase of $770,000 at the region and $717,000 at Amherst Public Schools,” she said, referencing a recent budget season that will feature at least 11 staff reductions, according to The Daily Hampshire Gazette.
“Our transportation contract has increased by 14 percent. We've stretched the burden across five years, but that's a 10 percent increase that will hit us in FY27,” she continued. “Our liability insurance has increased by nearly 50 percent and our special education costs continue to rise in all three districts.”
For an hour, students and educators representing schools throughout the Pioneer Valley told similar stories.
In Hatfield, special education costs have grown substantially over the past year, says Superintendent Dr. Conor Driscoll, rising by an anticipated 25 percent for the next school year after shooting up 21 percent for the previous one.
The costs eat up a third of the district’s roughly $6 million budget. Driscoll says despite efforts like the town of 3,300 passing an override in 2023, the costs are far-exceeding what Hatfield can contribute.
They also exceed the state’s circuit breaker reimbursements that only cover 3.25 percent of the district’s special education costs. Then there’s the cost of transportation.
“… when we received a 43 percent increase, we thought, ‘Hey, maybe we'll go back out to bid,’” he said, describing how school transportation contract bidding played out for Hatfield Public Schools. “… but we only got one bid. So, that same company could have come back and said ‘Well, actually, it's 60 percent this time,’ so, we didn't end up doing that. We ate that 43 percent and that's a common story throughout the Commonwealth.”
Some called for regional transportation reimbursements of up to 100 percent. Most also echoed calls throughout western Massachusetts to re-open the state’s Chapter 70 formula. It’s a process that divvies up millions in state school funding each year while factoring in how much a municipality has to contribute.
As it stands, cities like Springfield, with large and more economically challenged student populations, tend to benefit more than rural school districts.
Every budget season, the formula contributes to intense school funding debates in rural districts, which are dealing with declining enrollment on top of inflation and other rising costs.
Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has had her fair share of those debates, including one playing out now as the city council weighs a Northampton Public Schools budget proposal of almost $44 million.
“Each year, that gap grows wider and this year, Chapter 70 only accounts for 16 percent of our actual net school spending here in Northampton,” she said. “We cannot meet the expanding needs, not to mention innovate and excel, without a fair share of state funding.”
Also discussed– the state of the Rural Schools Aid Fund. For the past few years, advocates have called for the state to increase the fund to $60 million, citing a 2022 state commission report on rural school needs.
The FY25 budget packed only $16 million – $971,000 of which made its way to Gateway Regional Schools last year. Student representative Theodore DeAngelis-Page says his district of about 700 students did a lot with the money, fully-funding nine teaching positions this year.
But, as his colleague Ana Holmes says, even with that and the grants Gateway schools apply for, more aid is needed.
“We have stretched our budget in every direction just to cover the basic needs of students,” Holmes said. “It is thanks to hard work, writing grants and crunching numbers that we can even strive for more. But writing grants and competing for funding every year is not sustainable - children should not have to compete with one another for education.”
Listening to members of several other school districts, plus local State Representative Lindsay Sabadosa and State Senator Jo Comerford, Tutwiler said gathering such input is key to his job.
He also emphasized Chapter 70 reform is a matter the legislature must tackle.
“Chapter 70 is a law - I'm just going to be upfront and honest with you,” he said. “What the administration has done are the things that are within its purview, the proposals around the 24 percent increase in Circuit Breaker funding… the increase in regional transportation reimbursement from 80 percent to 95 percent. I know it's not quite 100 percent, but we're getting there. These are things that are within our control and that have impact on districts.”
He added the Healey administration would be willing partners should the legislature “open up Chapter 70.”
The governor’s FY26 budget proposal includes increasing Chapter 70 funding by $420 million, totaling $7.3 billion. It would also fully-fund the state’s Special Education Circuit Breaker at $682 million, an increase of $132 million.
