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

FY2010 Senate Ways & Means Budget

This afternoon the Senate Committee on Ways and Means released its Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Recommendations, House # 4101, to the Senate.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee members have recommended a total budget for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) of $4.258 billion. This amount reflects a decrease of $269.5 million below the Department's FY2009 current projected spending of $4.527 billion, after the October and January 9C budget cuts. The Senate Ways and Means budget represents a $205.5 million decrease from the Final FY2010 House 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 Senate Ways and Means Budget does not consolidate accounts as the Governor recommended, with one exception. The three literacy programs are consolidated, but fully reference the previous literacy line item language for the Bay State Reading Institute, the John Silber Literacy Program and the Early Literacy Program.

Both the Senate Ways and Means and the House budgets transfer all DESE IT funds to the Secretary of Education, in concurrence with the Governor's plan for state-wide IT consolidation.

The FY2010 Senate Ways and Means Budget is scheduled for debate by the Senate starting the week of May 19th. I will send you an updated narrative and funding analysis when House #4101 is adopted by the Senate and the final Senate Budget is released by the Senate 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 current appropriations after the two (October & January) 9C cuts, the specific FY10 House 1 account recommendations, the FY10 House Recommendations, and the variance between the House and Senate Ways & Means Budgets.

We will continue to analyze the Senate 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 May Board meeting.

The full text of the Senate Ways and Means FY2010 Budget Recommendations is available online at: http://www.mass.gov/legis/10budget/senate/intro.htm. Section 2 contains all the budget line items and ESE's line items start at 7010-0005.

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