Great Barrington –– Southern Berkshire County regional school districts, which must spend a fortune on busing, may see some relief this year from the crushing load of annual transportation costs after county legislators won a $7.5 million bump up from last year’s disbursements.
But only if Governor Charlie Baker agrees, in the next 10 days, to keep the $59 million total allocation, which will result in reimbursements of 84 percent of the full cost of busing students to the county’s regional schools, according to Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli’s office.
After final budget approval, the governor has 10 days to sift through the budget items, said Rep. Pignatelli (D-Lenox). “The governor will have to veto something,” he added. Rep. Pignatelli was, along with Sen. Benjamin Downing (D-Pittsfield), Sen. Anne Gobi (D-Spencer), and Rep. Kimberly Ferguson (R-Holden), instrumental in securing not only the transportation funds, but record levels of funding for various Berkshire County needs.
“Politics tells me [the Governor] will have to do something, to put his stamp on it. But I think the budget is strong moving forward,” Pignatelli observed.
However, he doesn’t think that Gov. Baker will ditch the bussing allocation, citing a collective regional school push-back early this year over $18.7 million in school busing cuts made by outgoing Gov. Deval Patrick in order to correct a projected $325 million deficit. The Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS) threatened to go to court over the hit, which in turn, said local school officials, had the potential to threaten teaching and other positions.
Berkshire Hills Regional School District, for instance, usually receives between 35 to 60 percent of the total cost of busing per year. The district was set to get 90 percent last year, but Patrick’s cuts wiped it out.
Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon says he’s “excited” and grateful for the legislators’ efforts on the district’s behalf. “It’s a big deal that the state is starting to move towards meeting its promises and obligations. It will impact education significantly,” he said.
That’s because unfunded mandates like busing are partly to blame for troubled school budgets, Dillon said. “Unfunded mandates chew up resources –– both time and money. The better job we can do aligning our efforts, the more likely we will be successful at supporting student growth and in investing resources in the types of programs that change kids’ lives.”
Rep. Pignatelli earlier this year said that school transportation funding is an annual “battle.”
“The unkept promise of nearly 60 years ago to fully fund regional school transportation has never been honored,” Pignatelli added. “There are three famous words that every politician loves: ‘subject to appropriation,’ ” he joked. But Pignatelli is dead serious. He said the state “dangled the carrot” for regionalization, and year after year, never ponies up the full-funding enchilada.
He said these “glaring broken promises” are the reason small towns are “always such skeptics towards state government,” and that it has hindered progress. “It holds small towns back when we haven’t fulfilled promises.”
Yet Rep. Pignatelli has hope. He said that while the budget recovered from last year’s deficit, and is now “strong and moving forward,” it isn’t all about the money, but about “the amount of collaboration with a new governor, specifically a Republican administration, and the cooperation that he gave to the House and Senate.” Pignatelli was a bit disappointed that it didn’t all get done by July 1, citing a “disconnect between the House and Senate on a few issues.”
But, he added, “it’s one of the better budgets I’ve had in 12 years.”
