District/School Administration Administration
The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education

FY2010 House Ways & Means Budget

This afternoon the House Committee on Ways and Means released its Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Recommendations, House # 4000, to the House of Representatives.

The House Ways and Means Committee members have recommended a total budget for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) of $4.434 billion. This amount reflects a decrease of $93.4 million below the Department's FY2009 projected spending of $4.527 billion, after all of the 9C budget cuts. The House Ways and Means budget represents a $59.2 million decrease from the Governor's House 1 Budget.

As you may recall, the Governor's House 1 consolidated a majority of DESE's accounts. House 1 took 31 DESE accounts and consolidated similar accounts into 11 new accounts with budget language that gave the Commissioner some discretion in the allocation of limited FY10 resources to priority areas. The House Ways and Means Budget does not consolidate accounts as the Governor recommended, but does transfer all DESE IT funds to the Secretary of Education, as did House 1 in an effort to better coordinate the use of IT funds. The House Ways and Means Budget concurs with the Governor on the state-wide IT consolidation.

The FY2010 House Ways and Means Budget is scheduled for debate by the House of Representatives starting the week of April 27. I will send you an updated narrative and funding analysis when House #4000 is adopted by the House of Representatives and the final House Budget is released by the House Clerk.

The attached chart lists all of the Department's accounts in numeric order. The columns list the original FY09 DESE appropriations, the FY09 DESE appropriations after the 9C cuts, the specific FY10 House 1 account recommendations, the FY10 House Ways & Means account recommendations, and the variance between the two FY10 budget proposals.

We will continue to analyze the House Ways and Means Budget, and the details behind the major variances between the two budgets. I will provide you with an update on the FY2010 Budget and the Federal Stimulus funding at the April Board meeting.

The full text of the House Ways and Means FY2010 Budget Recommendations is available online at: http://www.mass.gov/legis/10budget/house/

If you have any questions regarding this budget, please feel free to call me.

Enclosures:

	Analysis of House 1 (line-item detail) to House Ways & Means’ budget (#4000)
	Allocation of ARRA Funds to Local School Districts