Senate Passes Fiscal Year 2017 Budget

Senator Pat Jehlen (D-Somerville) and her colleagues in the Massachusetts Senate recently voted on a $39.558 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2017, investing in key areas related to local aid, education, children’s health and safety, housing, health and human services, workforce training, and economic development.

“Chairwoman Spilka and the Senate Ways and Means staff have put in a tremendous amount of work during this process. With their leadership, we have come out of this debate with an even better version of the state budget despite having begun with extremely limited revenue,” said Senator Jehlen, Assistant Vice Chair of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.

Senator Jehlen filed and voted in support of several amendments that would increase funding for local projects and programs located within the Second Middlesex District. $100,000 was included for invasive species control on the Mystic River, which would allow for the continued eradication of water chestnut in the Mystic River and the beginning of the effort to remove dense phragmites lining portions of the riverbank. $110,000 was appropriated for the Cambridge Weekend Backpack Program, which helps feed low-income students in Cambridge. An additional $50,000 was included for the rehabilitation of MacDonald Park in Medford.

Also included in the Senate budget is language that would create a pilot program known as the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Assessment, which would be comprised of public school districts that intend to develop a comprehensive system for assessing students and schools that educators can use to improve instruction and help each child grow up to be a self-reliant and skillful adult.

“The superintendents, their teachers, and school committees who have joined the Consortium are already working together, and are looking forward to developing and piloting alternative measures in their schools in this three-year pilot with a longer term goal of sharing them throughout the state,” said Senator Jehlen. “The current system of high stakes attached to standardized tests has narrowed the curriculum and reduced time for subjects like the arts and social studies, as well for building important skills like creativity and collaboration that are needed in today’s economy.”

This budget continued to focus heavily on the Senate’s education priorities, including landmark language to overhaul the Chapter 70 formula to fund Massachusetts school districts more fairly and adequately in the future. As recommended by the Foundation Budget Review Commission (FBRC) last year, of which Senator Jehlen was a member, the new formula better accounts for school districts’ rising health insurance costs and the high cost of educating students with special needs, English Language Learners, and low income students.

“Having served on the Foundation Budget Review Commission, I am heartened the Senate budget addressed the Commission’s recommendations to the extent possible given the limited revenue projected for FY17,” said Senator Jehlen. “Adequate funding for public education has been at the top of my priority list throughout my career in both the House and Senate.”

The Senate also included language that would eliminate districted determined measures currently mandated by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This would remove the impact rating mandate on educator evaluations while maintaining indicators of student learning as a source of evidence in the educator development and evaluation process.

A Conference Committee will now work out the differences between the Senate budget and the version passed by the House of Representatives in April. Fiscal Year 2017 begins on July 1, 2016.

– Submitted by Sen. Jehlen’s office