Excessive reliance on real estate tax funding has made education funding in our schools unsustainable. In order to fund our public schools, we are faced with a Hobson’s choice: either tax our farmers and seniors out of their homes and farms, or reduce the level of services and teachers in the schools. The Patrick proposal to increase Chapter 70 funding conditioned on applying those funds to reducing fees is very disturbing. User fees, along with liberal exceptions for families with financial need, have allowed us not to lay off even more teachers and cut even more critical core educational activities. Requiring the use of additional Chapter 70 funds for extracurricular funding compounds the problem by providing relief only to soccer moms and dads and forcing even larger regressive overrides on our seniors and most vulnerable residents. Towns deserve local control over the use of these additional Chapter 70 funds. It can’t be Governor Patrick’s intent to burden these folks even more.
Consider the facts in Harvard. In 1993, Harvard’s average tax bill was $3,213 and in the state it was $1,993. In 2007, Harvard’s average tax bill more than doubled to $6,862 while the average tax rate in Massachusetts increased to $3,801. Even with these increases we are unable to make ends meet. How can that be?
First, 70 percent of the town budget in Harvard is for the schools. This means that it’s not other spending in town that drives our tax rate; it’s the schools.
Today, Harvard spends $7,532 per child in the schools, far less than the state average of $8,591 per child. Of this $7,532, $5,395 is spent on core educational services, and the rest on unfunded, state-mandated, special education. Special education costs are highly variable from town to down and do not bear a rational relationship to the real estate tax base. In a smaller community such as Harvard, a single new placement, absent an override, could cause the layoff of two teachers. In Fiscal Year 2007, our entire budget increase in the schools (which required an override along with a cut in services) except for $5,000 went to fund increases in special education costs. This does not mean special education funding is wrong, it means that we need to find additional state resources to fund it more equitably to preserve the diversity in our community and not burden our most vulnerable citizens.
In 1993, Harvard spent $5,930 per child, after excluding special education spending. This is about 10 percent less in real dollars today than in 1993. Who among us spends 10 percent less today in our homes and businesses than we did in 1993? This statistic demonstrates that in Harvard, as is likely the case in other communities, the amount that can be financed out of future cost savings and efficiencies is likely quite limited given the substantial reductions taken to date (i.e., the low-hanging fruit has been picked).
Today, Harvard receives about $900 per child in Chapter 70 funds, while having to cover these unfunded state mandates. The state average is $3,441. Chapter 70 must provide a $2,000 to $3,000 level of per-child aid or our schools or our community cannot survive. Why should a senior in Harvard with a fixed income be forced to pay more than two times what a senior pays in a neighboring community?
So how has Harvard coped? Teachers have been let go, special programs have been dropped, fees have been used to fund all extracurricular activities, and parents have conducted substantial private fund-raising efforts. All this despite repeated overrides. The real price has been paid by the kids, as class sizes have increased from around 20 to around 30 or more over the past 10 years.
Under the current real estate tax system, our only choice is to burden our most vulnerable citizens with overrides. It is wrong to deprive our kids. It is wrong to increase taxes on our fixed income seniors and farmers. Each increase creates a burden and an incentive for them to move. Each move increases the number of children in the system in relation to our tax base, making the structural deficit worse. A related problem issue is the cost of Chapter 40B housing development. As farmers and seniors are forced to move, developers are able to plan and construct significant developments that do not pay for the incremental educational cost of the additional kids.
In sum, it is wrong to give Chapter 70 funds to our parents for extracurricular activities. It is right to increase the share of income tax funded education costs so that those who can afford it most pay the bill. We need to find a way to increase the available Chapter 70 funds so that the floor can be increased to cover $2,000 to $3,000 per child per year out of income taxes.
In November 2006, The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (www.massbudget.org) reported that combined state and local spending in Massachusetts equaled 4.2 percent of state personal income, placing us 35th out of the 50 states. The national average was 4.6 percent.
So what can we do? First, we need to set a floor for Chapter 70 funding of $2,000 to $3,000 per child. Second, we need to finance the floor. While potentially unpopular, the only fair way to do so would be to increase the state income tax. A 0.5 percent increase, with a mandate to allocate it on a per-child basis to all of our schools, could cover unfunded mandates and could go a long way to addressing these concerns. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center estimates this would raise about $1 billion in additional revenue and put us in line with the national average in school funding.
Sure this is not a popular idea. However, the current debate is like arguing over “scraps at the table.” If we fail to increase resources, we will only continue to pit the needs of our children against our teachers, our seniors, and our farmers.
Bruce Leicher, a Harvard resident, submitted the above opinions to the Deval Patrick transition team in December
