On Oct. 30, Jason Fraser of the Plympton School Committee and Silver Lake School Committee provided testimony to the Joint Committee on Education in favor of what is known as the Rural Schools Bill (H.3567/S.2388) which would provide additional funding to school districts considered “rural” to help cope with economy of scale issues including special education, transportation and building construction. In 2018, the Plympton School Committee joined a group of rural schools in Massachusetts who gathered and analyzed data on school department struggles in small communities. This data was used to advocate for dedicated state funding to rural schools. In FY 21, Plympton received $12,272 in rural aid. These funds have increased over the past few years leading to Plympton receiving $55,294 of rural aid in FY 24. Similarly, Silver Lake Regional School District received $47,951 in rural aid in FY 21 and this too has grown to $173,580 in FY 24. The Rural Schools Bill which is based on the Massachusetts Legislature’s Report on a Sustainable Future for our Rural Schools would further increase state funding for rural school districts by a factor of four. Additionally, if passed, this legislation would create a commission to look at special education financing, which would provide key data for future legislation and state funding to support our schools.
Fraser also provided testimony to the Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government on Oct. 24, in favor of two bills which would help cities and towns prepare fiscally for unanticipated special education cost and extraordinary budgetary increases due to assessments from regional schools. H.2075 would increase the allowable maximum balance in Special Education Reserve Funds to 5% of net school spending (NSS), creating a more resilient tool for municipalities to use in addressing unanticipated special education costs. Special Education Reserve Funds are currently capped at 2% of NSS. H.2076 would allow municipalities to create a Regional School Assessment Reserve Fund. A Regional School Assessment Fund would create a mechanism by which a municipality could save funds in a year when the Regional School Assessment is low to be used in a future budget cycle when the Assessment may be extraordinary. In both of these bills, municipalities have the control over the creation of the reserve fund, making investments into these funds and using these funds via the legislative body of the municipality, which, in the case of our towns would be town meetings.