On Monday, April 6, during the school committee meeting, Superintendent Dr. Maruszczak will present an updated view on school budgeting basics. According to School Committee member Phil DeZutter, the focus will be on the foundation budget, target local share, and net school spending. .
The community will have a chance to address the committee/Dr. Maruszczak and ask questions during the community comments portion of the meeting.
The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the Superintendents Conference Room at Miscoe Hill.
In preparation for the meeting DeZutter has provided a “simple” version of the concepts found below.
Foundation budget is a concept established by the state back in 1994 and updated in 2007. It is sometimes referred to as “minimum requirement”. The focus of this concept is for the state to establish a minimum funding level for basic education in each town/city of the state. The goal of this is to identify the appropriate but not excessive level of funding to provide an adequate education to our students. It is determined by examining a number of factors; student population broken into 13 different enrollment types across each grade level, 11 different funding categories (that account for admin, professional development, etc…), and geographical location. These specific factors to a town/city are then used to calculate a per pupil foundation budget. Each town/city can be different from another. For example, a location with an increased number of ELL or special education students may have a higher foundation budget per pupil that a location without, based on cost to educate that sub-population.
Target local share is a concept established in 1997 with the foundation budget and revised in 2007 to reflect a need for a higher base level of funding from the state. The purpose of the target local share is to determine the level of local revenue that the town/city should be putting towards the operations of its schools. It is determined based on the personal income level and property values of a town/city (sometimes referred to as “affluence level”). Chapter 70 funds (state aid) are then determined based on the difference between this level and the foundation budget. Towns/cities that do not fund education at the target local share and have high affluence levels are penalized in subsequent years with minimal aid increases such as is currently in the governor’s budget for MURSD.
Net school spending is the total operational budget amount of a school system in a town/city. This number reflects the actual cost of the services a school provides. It is understood by the state, that in order to provide a diverse educational program for our students (including arts, sports, AP, etc…) that there is a need to fund above the foundation budget. This increased amount is at the discretion of a town/city. The state average for net school spending as a percentage of the foundation budget is 119.2%. For our collective towns it is 113.4%.
Those who wish to learn more can view Dr Maruszczak 2011 presentation which cover these topics and others related to the budgeting process: http://mursd.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml…
In addition, this link http://www.massbudget.org/report_window.php… ties to a “plain English” version of the state process, formula, and history.
UPTON DAILY 