MMA urges Education Committee to support bills to bring transparency, accountability and reforms to charter school finance

The Honorable Kenneth I. Gordon, House Chair
The Honorable Jason M. Lewis, Senate Chair
Joint Committee on Education
State House, Boston

Delivered electronically

Dear Chair Gordon, Chair Lewis, and Distinguished Members of the Committee,

On behalf of cities and towns across the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Municipal Association writes to express our strong support for H. 521, An Act Relative to Transparency and Accountability in Charter School Finance, and House 4511 and Senate 2614, An Act reforming charter school funding in Massachusetts. These bills would bring transparency to charter school finance and provide relief to many public school districts.

Diversion of Chapter 70 school aid away from local public schools to fund charter schools imposes a major and growing financial burden on cities and towns. This problem is exacerbated by the state granting more charters and approving existing charter schools expansions. The resulting fiscal drain on cities, towns and school districts has led to reduced resources to support the vast majority of the Commonwealth’s students who remain in the local public school setting.

The bills before you begin to propose solutions that address the growing financial burden that charter schools impose upon the Commonwealth’s municipalities and school districts.

H. 521 proposes a maximum local contribution to total charter school tuition assessments set annually to the statewide average minimum required local contribution, per student. The bill would make no further changes to existing law — no change is proposed to charter school reimbursements and no change is proposed to overall tuition values a charter school may receive.

This bill is a targeted step to mitigate a portion of the harm done to local public schools by the charter school funding system while also allowing an opportunity to boost transparency and accountability of the Commonwealth’s charter schools. Existing charter school funding processes are completely off-budget, with funding deducted from a district’s Chapter 70 aid behind the scenes. This practice of transferring a significant portion of Chapter 70 aid without a hearing and without review by the public and Legislature lacks true transparency and accountability. H. 521, introduces an opportunity to begin to bring sunshine to this opaque process.

H. 4511 and S. 2614 propose several reforms to state and municipal cost-sharing for charter schools, including shifting a portion of tuition spending to the Commonwealth, standardizing the maximum amount of net school spending that a sending district sends to charter schools, and increasing the amount and timeline of state reimbursements to districts. The bills also reform charter proposal processes, increasing transparency and public participation and requiring the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to consider financial impacts on local districts when reviewing charter proposals.

All three bills include proposals that will ease financial pressures on municipalities while supporting both district and charter school students through more sustainable and transparent funding processes. We strongly urge the Committee to support H. 521, H. 4511, and S. 2614.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on this critical issue. If you have any questions or desire further information, please do not hesitate to have your office contact me or MMA Senior Legislative Analyst Adrienne Núñez at [email protected] at any time.

Many thanks to each of you for your steadfast partnership with cities and towns in ensuring that the needs and dreams of students across the Commonwealth are nurtured and Massachusetts’ public schools have the resources they need to achieve this.

Sincerely,

Adam Chapdelaine
MMA Executive Director and CEO