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The budgetary response to the state’s fiscal crisis dominated discussions of education funding in Massachusetts in the current year. In order to put the current education finance discussion in perspective, however, it is important to looks at historical trends for primary and secondary (K-12) public education within the state and to compare education spending in Massachusetts with other states and with the nation as a whole.
This brief examines changes in Massachusetts education spending from 1993 to 2006. In that time, Massachusetts’ support of public education is compared to other states in terms of federal, state and local spending. Finally, the brief looks at how the costs of education in Massachusetts are shared between the federal, state and local funds.
This Budget Brief describes and compares the budgets presented by the Governor (first as presented in January, then as amended in April and finally as revised in May), and by the House, the Senate, and the Conference Committee. It examines how these budgets balance, how they differ in their uses of revenues, and how much non-recurring revenue each uses.
The Brief also examines progress that has been made in improving the transparency of the budget process and suggests further improvements. One significant improvement suggested is that the state should provide summary budget documents that list all spending and all revenue and show how they balance.
Ten years ago Massachusetts enjoyed substantial annual budget surpluses. As the Fiscal Year 2010 (FY 2010) budget process begins, the Commonwealth faces a deficit that may exceed $3 billion. What happened over this decade that took us from fiscal strength to a severe fiscal crisis?