Day: April 13, 2026

I want to circle back to my last blog post regarding School Committee Member Batory’s comments on Net School Spending for the Pittsfield Public Schools.

While her original post (which now has been taken down) made false claims about Pittsfield’s Net School Spending requirement, her argument was that the City should be contributing more to educational spending and one way that should be done is through the use of free cash.

I’m not an expert in finances on the city side of things, but from my understanding free cash is the money the city has left over from its budget at the end of the fiscal year, or other incoming funds that were not put towards a line item. The Massachusetts Division of Local Services has some good resources on free cash which you can find here, and it says this about using free cash.

As a nonrecurring revenue source, free cash should be restricted to paying one-time expenditures, funding capital projects, or replenishing other reserves. We do not recommend that free cash be budgeted for ongoing operational purposes.  

This is the fundamental problem with using free cash, or really any nonrecurring revenue sources for educational spending. Most educational spending is recurring spending, mainly salaries for teachers and staff. Unless reductions in force are made, salaries will grow year after year by a mostly predictable amount. Free cash, meanwhile, does not grow by a predictable amount year after year. Some years we may have more free cash, and other years we may only have a little bit.

Let’s say the city wants to give $4,000,000 from free cash to the Schools to help eliminate any cuts to staff this year. There is no guarantee that the city will still have $4,000,000 to give to the schools next year from free cash, and so the district will have to make the same cuts next year, maybe even more cuts because salaries would have gone up more, especially since that negotiations are still ongoing with all 3 bargaining units. This would cause more instability in the school budget and create more issues down the road for the district.

Now, could the city give the schools some free cash funds to help pay for some non-recurring expenses such as repairs to buildings, new textbooks, or new supplies. Probably, depending on the financial picture of the city. Though I think the City tries to be careful with not using up too much free cash in case an emergency comes up and the city needs to move funds out of free cash to pay for it.

However, I think we are looking at the wrong side of the education funding formula here.

If we take a deeper dive into spending over require Net School Spending for all districts in Massachusetts, we see a bit of a pattern emerge. Municipalities that are wealthier can fund their schools more compared to municipalities that are not as wealthy.

Here are the 20 districts who budgeted the most above the Required Net School Spending in FY26. As you can see, there are towns and cities such as Lenox, Richmond, and Cambridge that tend to be more wealthier and can afford to put more money into their schools.

Ranking Over NSS	District Name	FY26 Required NSS	FY26 Budgeted NSS	Amt Over or Under Req’d	Budgeted as % of Req’d
1	Provincetown	1,696,815	8,843,829	7,147,014	521.2%
2	Truro	2,240,515	7,328,234	5,087,719	327.1%
3	Upisland	5,407,027	17,515,002	12,107,975	323.9%
4	Pelham	994,542	2,944,843	1,950,301	296.1%
5	Rowe	738,129	2,156,313	1,418,184	292.1%
6	Richmond	2,029,918	5,491,621	3,461,703	270.5%
7	Lenox	6,840,967	18,175,047	11,334,080	265.7%
8	Edgartown	6,443,899	15,970,838	9,526,939	247.8%
9	Rockport	8,017,687	19,604,925	11,587,238	244.5%
10	Cambridge	129,510,667	299,094,537	169,583,870	230.9%
11	New Salem Wendell	1,726,325	3,754,387	2,028,062	217.5%
12	Pioneer Valley	9,260,407	20,135,553	10,875,146	217.4%
13	Erving	2,653,776	5,766,563	3,112,787	217.3%
14	Concord	24,705,221	52,595,437	27,890,216	212.9%
15	Wellesley	55,002,556	116,199,671	61,197,115	211.3%
16	Oak Bluffs	7,008,100	14,627,041	7,618,941	208.7%
17	Mattapoisett	5,011,904	10,256,911	5,245,007	204.7%
18	Tisbury	6,777,327	13,833,985	7,056,658	204.1%
19	Whately	1,318,482	2,676,030	1,357,548	203.0%
20	Topsfield	7,207,299	14,575,928	7,368,629	202.2%

Here the 20 districts who budgeted the least over Required Net School Spending in FY26 (if they meet it at all). As you can see, there are towns and cities such as Springfield, Fitchburg, Worcester, and Holyoke that are less wealthier and cannot afford to put much more in that what is required for their schools.

Ranking Over NSS	District Name	FY26 Required NSS	FY26 Budgeted NSS	Amt Over or Under Req’d	Budgeted as % of Req’d
296	Greater Lawrence	51,977,920	50,255,643	(1,722,278)	96.7%
295	Northbridge	32,816,827	31,729,457	(1,087,369)	96.7%
294	Malden	132,114,202	128,253,528	(3,860,674)	97.1%
293	Holbrook	23,413,602	22,943,763	(469,839)	98.0%
292	Greater Lowell	55,719,987	55,468,222	(251,765)	99.5%
291	Tri County	22,245,823	22,171,098	(74,725)	99.7%
290	New Bedford	295,054,095	294,825,036	(229,059)	99.9%
289	Greater Fall River	35,109,152	35,109,152	0	100.0%
288	Leominster	111,313,888	111,318,708	4,820	100.0%
287	Springfield	600,170,350	600,237,749	67,399	100.0%
286	Lynn	384,629,299	384,684,153	54,854	100.0%
285	Southeastern	38,826,302	38,842,804	16,502	100.0%
284	Northeast Metropolitan	34,438,284	34,526,132	87,848	100.3%
283	Essex North Shore	31,042,516	31,133,830	91,314	100.3%
282	Holyoke	124,458,254	124,931,826	473,573	100.4%
281	Everett	172,711,735	173,457,122	745,387	100.4%
280	Worcester	549,403,109	552,004,676	2,601,567	100.5%
279	Gardner	45,038,410	45,258,504	220,094	100.5%
278	Southbridge	44,392,356	44,621,778	229,422	100.5%
277	Fitchburg	110,732,185	111,423,878	691,693	100.6%

Pittsfield ranks 216 on spending over Required Net School Spending, which is on the lower side compared to other districts.

One of the goals of the Student Opportunity Act was to give more funding to school districts who needed more funding to their schools but couldn’t afford it out of their tax base, ensuring all districts are equitably funded. But if wealthier districts can put more money into their schools and be able to provide more services, then that inequity still exists.

I feel the state needs to reexamine the Chapter 70 funding formal again, instead of making smaller fixes like increasing minimum per-pupil aid each year which doesn’t address any of these inequities. I feel the state should look at ensuring that inflation and cost increases that districts face are represented in the foundation budget, instead of using an inflation factor that doesn’t match reality. The state should also look at finding ways to ensure that districts that can’t get more funding from their local governments can get more state aid so they are not outspent by districts that do have the means to spend more towards education.

That is the discussion we need to start having.