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The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education

Chapter 70 Update

To:
Members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education
From:
Mitchell D. Chester, Ed.D., Commissioner
Date:
February 17, 2017

On January 25, 2017, Governor Baker released House 1, his proposed state budget for fiscal year 2018. As shown in the chart below, his proposal increases Chapter 70 aid from $4.628 billion to $4.719 billion, an increase of $91 million (2%).

Chapter 70 Program — Comparison of FY17 (actual) with FY18 (House 1 proposed)
 
 FY17 FY18ChangePct Chg
Enrollment940,103941,3031,2000.13%
Foundation budget10,128,238,38310,343,846,027215,607,6442.13%
Required district contribution5,926,185,5676,032,954,990106,769,4231.80%
Chapter 70 aid 4,627,705,0614,719,098,68391,393,6221.97%
Required net school spending (NSS)10,553,890,62810,752,053,673198,163,0451.88%
 
Target aid share41.00%41.00%  
C70 % of foundation45.69%45.62%  
 
Required NSS % of foundation104.20%103.95%  

Looking at the major factors in the formula:

FY18 will be the second year in which the Commonwealth has used the new "economically disadvantaged" metric to determine the additional funding that districts receive under Chapter 70 to meet the extra needs of students from low income families. This change was necessitated by new eligibility rules for the National School Lunch Program adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) several years ago. For many years, the Department used eligibility for free and reduced price school lunches as our measure of student poverty. Under the new USDA rules, more students benefit from school nutrition programs and many districts with significant numbers of eligible students no longer need to collect eligibility data from their families.

The economically disadvantaged metric is based on the number of students whose families receive benefits under the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program ("SNAP", formerly known as food stamps) and other assistance programs administered by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. At the request of the Legislature, the Department recently issued the attached report, which describes the transition to this new metric in detail. The report notes that most districts saw no change or a net gain in their Chapter 70 aid as a result of this change in measurement. But additional study is needed to address the impact on the small number of districts that have disproportionately high numbers of refugees and undocumented immigrants.

Deputy Commissioner Jeff Wulfson and School Finance Programs Manager Melissa King will join us at the February 28 meeting to discuss these issues in further detail.

Attachment:

Download PDF Document
Low Income Student Calculation Study Feb 2017