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House Budget is "good first step"

Statement on the House budget by MTA President Catherine A. Boudreau

The House budget proposal restores some stability and slows the fiscal free-fall experienced by our schools. That is a good first step. However, the financial condition of our elementary and secondary education system can only be upgraded from "critical" to "poor."

Communities have not recovered from the half-a-billion dollars ($527 million) in education and local aid cuts over the past two years. Massachusetts reduced K-12 per pupil spending by a greater amount than any other state in the country during that period. As a result, many students are in larger classes, have fewer services and are assessed higher fees than before. Unfortunately, we can expect more of the same next year in many districts - though this budget stops the hemorrhaging by guaranteeing that every district remains at foundation and that no operating district receives less in direct school aid than it received in FY04.

We especially applaud the House for exceeding the governor's budget request in order to help districts meet the high costs of special education, restore transportation dollars to regional districts, fully fund the charter school reimbursement program and increase support for the METCO program. We are disappointed, however, that neither budget plan restores funding to the class size reduction program and other valuable initiatives that help young children learn.

There is also good news and bad concerning higher education. We commend the House for funding the higher education contracts. This was the fair and honorable thing to do. However, it is unfortunate that the state once again cut funding for our public higher education campuses. State funding for higher education has been cut deeply - by $223 million, or 21 percent in actual dollars, over the past three years. When inflation is taken into account, the loss is 26 percent. The state must begin restoring spending to previous levels if we are to offer students high-quality and affordable public higher education, a cornerstone of our economic health.

We continue to have long-term concerns about the overall budget picture. The state can't live off reserves indefinitely. Soon, the public and policy-makers will have to come to grips with the reality that we have a structural deficit that won't be solved by one-time fixes.

According to a new study by the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts ranked 36th among the 50 states in the tax burden imposed by all state and local taxes. This is an important fact to consider when debating whether to raise taxes to restore core programs, including public education programs, from preschool through graduate school.