Legislative Update: Republican Amendments
Press Release
July 7, 2007
The Republican Perspective
The House Republican caucus has made local aid one of its top legislative priorities for years. The caucus has also pushed for early agreement on local aid amounts, through an extra-budgetary local aid resolution, as a way to provide municipalities and school districts with reliable and timely information for the crafting of local budgets every spring.
The caucus believes there were several fundamental problems with the resolution, which were highlighted in the April 4th, 2007 debate:
- The legislators started the debate with the belief that Chapter 70 funding would be increased beyond levels proposed in House 1 by way of the local aid resolution. This presumably would have been welcome news for every district. However, those hopes were dashed once it was learned that one out of every five school districts in the state ended up receiving less Chapter 70 funding (and, in some cases, substantially less funding) than what was recommended in House 1.
- Aside from the numbers themselves, the most important reason for doing a local aid resolution is to set baselines for spring town meetings where local budgets are set. The Republicans have pushed for early aid resolutions by March 15 of every year, which generally would be timely enough for town meetings to do their work. The consideration of a resolution in early April, however, was of limited utility because of its lateness and proximity to the release of the actual budget.
- Neither the Governor´s Chapter 70 numbers nor those released by the Committee on Ways and Means in the local aid resolution were subjected to a public hearing.
- Republican members were not involved in the process of negotiating and drafting the local aid resolution.
Republican Amendments
The members of the House Republican caucus proposed and debated the following amendments to the local aid resolution on April 4th, 2007:
- Hold Communities Harmless — This amendment would have guaranteed that no school district would receive less under the local aid resolution than the Chapter 70 amount recommended for the district in House 1. Passage of this amendment would have eliminated the state wide funding discrepancy. (Defeated by a vote of 24-132.)
- Public Hearing — This amendment would have required that any material change to Chapter 70 funding be subjected to a public hearing at least 48 hours before being considered by the House or Senate. (Defeated by a vote of 19-137.)
- Annual Resolution — This amendment would have expressed an intent that the House pass a local aid resolution by March 15 of every year, to guarantee that cities and towns are given timely notice of local aid amounts. Without passage of this amendment, there is no guarantee that local aid resolutions will be passed at any future point. (Defeated by a vote of 23-132.)
- Sharing Unanticipated Revenues — This amendment would have expressed a willingness on the part of the House to commit 50 percent of any revenue in FY08 above the $19.8B consensus revenue estimate, up to $200 million, to local aid. In other words, if the state's fiscal picture ends up being more robust than anticipated, this amendment would have committed half of any new "found money" to local aid before any other priorities. This amendment was similar to one proposed by the caucus in the FY06 budget debate. (Defeated by a vote of 20-133.)
- Municipal "Fair Share" — This amendment would have expressed the intent of the House to commit 40 percent of all revenues from the sales tax, the corporate excise tax and the personal income tax to local aid by FY12. This proposal has been endorsed in the past by the Mass. Municipal Association and it was part of the Republican Caucus Agenda this year. (Defeated by a vote of 18-133.)
- Dedicating Unanticipated Revenues to Chapter 70 — This amendment was a combination of the principles behind amendment nos. 1 and 4. It would have dedicated 50 percent of revenue above the consensus revenue estimate, up to $200 million, to local aid. However, it contained an additional provision requiring that, in the event of such a supplemental distribution of local aid, preference would be given to those districts that received less Chapter 70 aid in the local aid resolution than in House 1. (Defeated by a vote of 19-135.)
I hope this information is helpful to you. Should you have any other questions about the local aid resolution or the amendments that were proposed for it, please feel free to contact my office at the State House by ´phone at 617-722-2305 or by e-mail at Rep.RobertHargraves@Hou.State.MA.US.
