Gloucester schools are not receiving enough aid from the state despite changes to how money is distributed to communities, residents told state education policy leaders last night.
About 100 residents and school officials went to Fuller School to tell the two legislators in charge of the Education Committee, Rep. Patricia Haddad of Somerset and Sen. Robert Antonioni of Leominster, along with Michelle Norman, an aide to the governor's adviser on kindergarten through 12th-grade education, that they believe the state formula continues to be unfair to Gloucester. Norman came in place of Dana Mohler-Faria, who is ill.
"I know what the problem is, that's absolutely clear," said Superintendent Christopher Farmer. "The changes have made no real impact in Gloucester at all. Fixing the formula is not rocket science. You can get six superintendents together and we'll tell you what we need and how much it will cost."
Farmer said some communities with greater wealth and income than Gloucester - specifically pointing to Brookline and Newton - receive more in state aid.
"It's not about adequacy, it's about equity," Farmer said.
The state aid distribution formula is based heavily on property values. But Gloucester has unique financial hardships as a community with only moderate household income but high property values because of its coastal location.
In the last two budgets, the state has added patches to the aid formula, attempting to balance property value with aggregate community income.
Another change set a minimum percentage that the state would provide of the total the state requires a community to spend on education. That minimum is 17.5 percent. It also created a cap on the state amount at 83.2 percent, though some communities are still above that level.
"You're at 17.4 percent, you're right about where you should be," Haddad said.
She said the Legislature is incrementally reducing aid to those communities to bring them under the cap.
"We've reduced by 1 percent from last year, and in some cases 2 percent," she said. "Those superintendents are screaming at us."
Antonioni said any change cannot take away from other communities - a principle he called "hold harmless" - or else it will be dead in the water.
About 100 residents and school officials went to Fuller School to tell the two legislators in charge of the Education Committee, Rep. Patricia Haddad of Somerset and Sen. Robert Antonioni of Leominster, along with Michelle Norman, an aide to the governor's adviser on kindergarten through 12th-grade education, that they believe the state formula continues to be unfair to Gloucester. Norman came in place of Dana Mohler-Faria, who is ill.
"I know what the problem is, that's absolutely clear," said Superintendent Christopher Farmer. "The changes have made no real impact in Gloucester at all. Fixing the formula is not rocket science. You can get six superintendents together and we'll tell you what we need and how much it will cost."
Farmer said some communities with greater wealth and income than Gloucester - specifically pointing to Brookline and Newton - receive more in state aid.
"It's not about adequacy, it's about equity," Farmer said.
The state aid distribution formula is based heavily on property values. But Gloucester has unique financial hardships as a community with only moderate household income but high property values because of its coastal location.
In the last two budgets, the state has added patches to the aid formula, attempting to balance property value with aggregate community income.
Another change set a minimum percentage that the state would provide of the total the state requires a community to spend on education. That minimum is 17.5 percent. It also created a cap on the state amount at 83.2 percent, though some communities are still above that level.
"You're at 17.4 percent, you're right about where you should be," Haddad said.
She said the Legislature is incrementally reducing aid to those communities to bring them under the cap.
"We've reduced by 1 percent from last year, and in some cases 2 percent," she said. "Those superintendents are screaming at us."
Antonioni said any change cannot take away from other communities - a principle he called "hold harmless" - or else it will be dead in the water.
"You have to have a majority (in the Legislature) to make any changes," he said. "No legislator is going to vote to cut funding for their district."
He stressed one of the main factors in fixing the formula is to change several variables used to assume what education costs.
"Those variables were basically established in 1993 when education reform passed," he said.
Members of the audience said the first step should be to restore education aid to Gloucester to its 2002-2003 level, which was when state funding to the city reached its peak.
"Gloucester has not been held harmless," said Ward 1 Councilor Jason Grow. "We're not the only community in this situation, but we're in the clear minority. I would like to be held harmless to 2003."
Mohler-Faria is part of a group of advisers working on a 10-year strategy for how to deliver education in Massachusetts for Gov. Deval Patrick. Norman said the group hopes to have itsr recommendations ready by March, and plans to visit communities around the state with their work.
The Legislature has tried to adjust the formula until a permanent change can be made. For the last two years, a community's aggregate income has also been taken into account and balanced with property value. Gloucester's median household income is lower than the state average.
In October 2005, Antonioni and Haddad came to Gloucester as part of a statewide tour to hear from communities about education aid.
State education aid to Gloucester reached a high of $6.55 million in the 2001-02 school year and levelled off for a year. But in 2003-04, the commonwealth cut education aid across the state after recession reduced tax revenues.
Gloucester's aid has inched upward since, now reaching the $6 million mark. But at the same time, the minimum school budget required by the state has increased - from $29.7 million in 2002-03 to $32.6 million last school year.
In June, the City Council approved a School Department budget of $35 million; the total city budget this fiscal year is $78.6 million.
Jumps in the cost of health insurance, contractual pay raises, energy costs and special education obligations account for much of the increase in the city School Department's budget over the last several years, while state aid has remained flat, school officials have said.
To cut costs, the School Committee has reduced funding for programs, laid off staff and all but eliminated money for athletics.
Over the last four years, the School Committee has laid off 75 teachers, closed a number of elective programs at the middle and high schools, cut busing for high schoolers, and added fees for parents of middle school children using school transportation.
Earlier this year, the School Department decided to close O'Maley Middle School next fall to save overhead and personnel. The middle school students will move to Fuller starting next year.
This year, Fuller's kindergartners through fourth-graders were dispersed among the city's five other elementary schools, while all fifth-graders were moved to Fuller.
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