A Wake Up Call on the Budget

After years of avoiding painful school budget cuts since experiencing a decrease in local aid from the state in 2002, Medford has been forced to make some tough choices for fiscal year 2009.

For the seventh consecutive year Medford has received less state aid than it did in 2002, actually receiving $814,236 less this year according to School Superintendent Roy Belson. So while costs for the schools have continued to rise, Medford has been forced to do more with less, a jig that is finally up this year as the schools faced a $3.4 million gap to simply provide the same level of services in 2009 as it did in 2008.

This has meant significant cuts across the board for the schools. While the mayor and superintendent did a good job in spreading around the cuts to avoid any dramatic cuts that would eliminate entire programs, the cuts still go deep and raise some serious concerns about how Medford and other communities suffering from the same fate can continue to fund their public schools.

Medford is one of eight communities that is receiving less state aid than it did in 2002, and according to Belson’s calculations, it is second only to Somerville in the drop in aid it has experienced. The other communities experiencing a squeeze due to a new state funding formula include Beverly, Falmouth, Gloucester, Newburyport, Saugus, and Wakefield. What is happening in Medford and these other communities is that the state is scaling back its share of the school budget from 37.5% to 17.5%.

A drop that significant has caused some serious problems and this year it finally came to a head in Medford, as rising health care costs and unexpected costs from a high school fire and energy bill error put the schools $1.2 million in the red.

While the mayor and superintendent should be applauded for eliminating the deficit, it begs the question of how Medford will continue to move forward with its schools when it starts off in a deep budgetary hole while just trying to provide the same level of services from one year to the next.

The new state funding formula that takes into account a community’s aggregate wealth is not fair to Medford or the other seven communities that are in the same position. Urban communities, suburban communities, wealthy communities, and communities in between all have different needs and a more equitable formula needs to be created to take into account these differences.

In addition, the state needs to start having a serious conversation about charter schools and these so-called new readiness schools the Governor has just proposed. These sexy new ideas sound good on paper but how can taxpayers continue to shoulder what could now become essentially three public school systems from the same pool of money? It seems the education system has become an easy target for unfunded mandates that sound good in theory but in practice end up hurting more than helping.

Medford residents should contact their State reps and senators- Paul Donato, Carl Sciortino, Sean Garballey, and Pat Jehlen– and tell them to start fighting for more equitable funding for our schools.

– Allison Goldsberry, Editor, InsideMedford.com