ORANGE — State Senate President Stanley Rosenberg advised roughly 20 rural educators not to file legislation seeking rural “sparcity” aid for schools with declining enrollment, but instead to work within proposed educational reform legislation to be filed next year, and to join with other school systems — whether urban or rural — that are suffering from rising school costs as enrollment declines.
He also suggested that “The Fair Share Amendment” ballot question in the November 2018 election may provide a new source of revenue for education.
The Fair Share Amendment calls for a 4 percent tax surcharge on any income above $1 million. This amendment requires two consecutive session legislative votes of approval before it goes before general voters, which is why it won’t reach the public until 2018. So far, it has been approved in this year’s legislative session and is scheduled for another vote in the next session.
If state residents endorse it, the amendment is expected to pump an additional $1.6 billion to $2.6 billion into the state economy, to be divided between education and transportation, Rosenberg said.
An education reform bill, called the RISE Act, had been filed last session and would have provided aid to school systems for enrollment losses to charter schools or School Choice; but that bill wasn’t taken up by the House of Representatives, he said.
Independent of that, the rural schools group has been developing a “sparcity aid” plan of up to $1,000 per enrolled student based on the following criteria: the percentage of enrollment decline over the last 15 years; student population density per mile; level-funding of Chapter 70 school aid over the past 15 years; and the per capita income of school district residents.
“I don’t think you need another piece of legislation,” said Rosenberg. “It takes a year or two to pass legislation, and I don’t think you can wait another year or two.”
And, if the legislation doesn’t gain enough lawmaker support, he said, “it can sit on the shelves, just the same as anything else. I don’t know if filing legislation is going to be worth your time in the end.”
Rosenberg advised the group “to get down on paper what you are actually looking for,” and to contact the chairman or chairwoman of both the Senate and House of Representatives’ education committees in January, to secure an amendment in the education reform bill to be filed in the next session.
He also suggested the mostly western Massachusetts rural schools panel find other school districts throughout the state that may also be struggling financially due to declining enrollment. He said there may be urban schools, as well as rural ones, struggling with these problems.
Rosenberg said state revenues are down, but legislators hope that Gov. Charlie Baker will not cut Chapter 70 local aid funding to towns and cities.
“Work with your legislators and work with rural districts across the state,” he said. “The majority of municipalities are below 20,000 (in population). You need to find every school system in the state that’s in the same bucket. There are also schools not in rural areas with declining enrollment that are in the same boat, too.”
Maureen Marshall, superintendent of the Quabbin Regional School District, set she is setting up a forum for Nov. 17 that will include Rosenberg, state Rep. Stephen Kulik and other invited legislators to discuss issues that are driving rural schools down.
Also, Tari Thomas has set up social networking pages that will present the Rural Schools Coalition work and research.
Representatives from the state Department of Education and Secondary Education attended the coalition meeting, at the Mahar Regional School, and offered to provide comparative data that would help the group in its analysis.
The coalition will meet again on Dec. 7.