Bravo to Marguerite Willis for raising questions about the Mohawk Trail District’s sustainability study. While it’s possible that this study may produce new information, the basic outline of the problem has been clear for over a decade. Franklin County’s student population has been declining, and therefore its district’s costs per student have been going up, because after a certain point a district can’t reduce its costs just because it has fewer students.
This simple truth has somehow eluded state officials at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, who have continued to suggest that various forms of consolidation “might” solve the problem while failing to suggest any reasonable scenarios for how that might happen. Indeed, studies have shown that consolidation could save some money, but not nearly enough to significantly reduce districts’ costs per student. Moreover, the state’s Chapter 70 student aid formula is based on enrollment, so if a district’s enrollment goes down, so does its aid.
In its wisdom, the state has agreed to “hold harmless” districts with declining enrollment, meaning that instead of going down their aid stays the same, which is better but fails to account for the fact that district budgets keep going up, just like everything else. When state aid is level-funded the member towns are left to make up the difference, and since they have their own budget pressures and are constrained by Proposition 2½, they have found this increasingly difficult to do.
Again, DESE’s advice to districts has been to suggest that they find ways to “economize,”without providing any useful suggestions for doing so. The report Ms. Willis referred to has just been released by the Special Commission on Rural School Districts. It should be an interesting read. I think the commission “gets it” and is working hard to find real answers. I hope I’m right. Stay tuned.
Michael Naughton
Millers Falls