SWAMPSCOTT — Swampscott’s elected officials and town administrators discussed the impact the state’s new Student Opportunity Act (SOA) will have on the district’s 2021 school budget during the town’s second annual financial retreat this Saturday.
Many felt the town was shortchanged by the program that determines the amount of state aid each district receives, arguing the SOA fund-allocation formula failed to account for Swampscott’s diverse student body.
“We’re in a group of communities that have a cost of education that’s significantly higher than (our net school spending),” Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald told the room of more than two dozen community leaders as they gathered in the library at Swampscott Middle School.
“When we look at communities that have similar demographics that … (receive) funding under Chapter 70, we’re not getting a fair share.”
Introduced last September, the SOA is part of a major overhaul of the original Chapter 70 education funding formula, which ensures equitable K-12 funding by calculating each district’s projected total spending, then factoring in property taxes and resident incomes to determine how much of a town’s budget should be state funded.
Swampscott received $4,662,489 in Chapter 70 aid for the 2021 fiscal year — a $64,000 increase from 2020.
Under the SOA, Massachusetts will phase $1.4 billion more into district budgets over the next seven years.
During her presentation on Swampscott’s net school spending, School Business Administrator Martha Sybert said this additional state spending on schools simply means “a bigger pie” for districts to take from.
Sybert continued that although pieces of the pie might be allocated differently under the new act, the money still means more resources for Massachusetts schools as a whole.
Despite a slight drop in recent years, Swampscott residents still see some of the highest property taxes in Essex County. However, Select Board chair Peter Spellios argued when it comes to Chapter 70 aid, the town’s increasingly diverse population and unique needs routinely fail to be fairly accounted for.
“If you look at the last decade, the amount of money we’ve received from the state is significantly (less than) the state’s own mandated minimum amount,” he said.
“We live in a town that has a very high medium income and high property values, but that doesn’t reflect our diverse socioeconomic status and the complexities that come with that.”
In her presentation that addressed Swampscott’s changing student population, Superintendent Pamela Angelakis acknowledged that over the last decade, the town has witnessed a marked increase in students who require extra resources.
Since 2010, the district has seen a 151 percent growth in students whose first languages are not English, a 32 percent growth in the number of students with disabilities, and a 76 percent growth in the district’s number of economically disadvantaged students.
State mandates — some of them new this year — require the district to provide additional resources and assistance to students who fall under these categories.
“Local districts continue to bear the costs of all the statutes, regulations, initiatives, grants, and directives,” Angelakis said. “Some of these are partially funded, some of these are completely unfunded.”
She added: “So much of this takes away from the business of educating our kids.”
