The House Ways and Means Committee released a fiscal 2011 state budget bill today that would cut the main municipal and education aid accounts by $160 million (about 3 percent overall), pretty much in line with what House and Senate leaders had announced in March.

The House bill would cut the Unrestricted General Government Aid account to $899 million, a 4 percent reduction for each city and town.

Chapter 70 education distributions would be cut by $122 million, to $3.93 billion. Most school districts would see a 4 percent cut to the combined Chapter 70 appropriation and temporary federal state fiscal stabilization fund (SFSF) grant amount for fiscal 2010, though some districts would be cut less in order to avoid funding below the foundation budget amount. In fiscal 2010, the state budgeted $167 million in SFSF funds to supplement education aid. In fiscal 2011, the SFSF supplement would drop to $75 million under the House budget committee’s plan.

In the executive summary accompanying the budget bill, the House budget committee noted that funding for the Cherry Sheet payment-in-lieu-of-taxes account and aid to public libraries would be level-funded. For schools, there would be a small increase (less than 2 percent) for the special education “circuit breaker” program and a 5 percent increase for transportation reimbursements to regional school districts.

The House is scheduled to begin its debate of the budget bill on Monday, April 26.

The governor had proposed to level-fund the main local aid accounts in his budget bill, which was filed in January.

Link to the House budget Web site

Link to the Section 3 (local aid amounts) in the House budget bill

Link to the Division of Local Services Web site for estimated Cherry Sheets based on the House Ways and Means budget

+
+