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By Will Mbah
Candidate for Somerville City Councilor at Large

Each year at this time, when the state of Massachusetts finishes its budget, our finance officers at city hall must take a careful look at what the governor and legislators have done, in order to determine what new monies or cuts in funding the city can expect.

This exercise, of course, is very important for the Mayor, councilors and agency heads. It should also be of interest to citizens so that we can better understand the financial process, adjust our expectations, and more effectively advocate for the programs we need.

Here is how I am looking at the new State Budget

First, I have started by checking the two largest transfers of state monies that come to the city every year:

• Aid to the Schools (called “Chapter 70 Aid”) is distributed to each city and town based its public school enrollment. The funds go into the city school budget and are spent on basic operations of the schools. Somerville’s share this year will be $21.2 million, a small increase from $20.9 million in FY2023.
• Unrestricted General Government Aid is a distribution of the Lottery and Gaming revenue to the towns and cities. These monies go into the city’s general fund to be used for any agency operations or services, with emphasis on education and transportation. Somerville’s share will be $30.1 million, up from $29.1 last year.

No last minute changes were made in these lines in the state budget, so the corresponding Somerville budget lines will not need any adjustment.

The more interesting part of the state budget involves a variety of grant programs – some of which we have already come to rely on in Somerville, but a few of which are new in 2024. As a council candidate, I am looking at areas, such as economic development and workforce support and training, clean energy, and traffic/transportation infrastructure grants. As a parent, I am looking closely at school-related programs and, in particular, at the state’s assistance for early education and childcare.

A few of my first observations

First, a very welcome new program will provide free meals for all children in the public schools. This will end the requirement for the schools to administer eligibility and handle lunch payments. It ends any stigma or bias among the kids and should insure that everybody gets a nutritious breakfast or lunch. Somerville reported spending $4.2 million on school meals in 2022. Now the FY2024 state budget has appropriated $69 million of new money for school lunches – which calculates at $100 per child statewide. If my math is correct, Somerville will see about $440,000 in new school meals funding.

A second area, where the state budget shows expanded funding is for pre-Kindergarten and child care programs. However, calculating Somerville’s share will require a somewhat more complicated analysis. There is some confusion in the numbers because the new state money is, in large part, intended to replace federal COVID and ARPA grants that will be finishing by the end of FY2024. The confusion appears to result from the way the appropriations have been structured in different line items in the state FY2024 budget.

In the past two weeks there have been reports that Head Start and possibly other early education programs in Somerville will suffer a substantial loss of funding, because the Governor’s vetoed two line items in the Early Education appropriations. Other reports, however, have noted substantial increases in the funding for Early Education and Childcare.

My own fast reading of the state budget appears to show the following. There will be a total of $1.36 billion for all the programs of Early Education and Childcare, which is an increase of $200 million over last year and $500 million over FY2022.

This broad total has been divided into 18 specific line items. The two largest are traditional programs that are “per child” based and, therefore, remain fairly steady year to year. These are (i) the program of the Department of Children and Families that pays child care costs for homeless, disabled and foster care children ($346 million statewide) and (ii) Income-Eligible Child Care that pays child-care and pre-K fees for low-income families ($407 million statewide).

 For a three years period, the COVID/ARPA grants have provided $750 million statewide for support the operations of early education programs; to supplement teacher salaries and provide professional training, and to assist parents to find, enroll and pay for child care and pre-K. These monies appear in the line item called “C3 Stabilization,” which last year had $373 million and in FY2024 will have $475 million.

Somerville has reported its share of the three-year COVID/ARPA funding at $6.6 million (reported in March 2023 by the Schools Committee).

In addition to these large programs the state budget has line items for 15 smaller programs, which focus on specific groups of families and providers – public school pre-K programs, Head Start, partner programs with the city schools, and independent licensed child care centers. It is among these smaller programs that certain advocates have noted a potential shortfall at the local level.

Specifically, the Governor has vetoed a line item titled “Center-Based Child Care Rate Increase,” which was proposed at $35 million statewide. It was to provide funds to pay higher rates for children receiving pre-K and child care from licensed centers. A second parallel line item titled “Early Education and Child Care Rate Increase” was approved for $20 million, state-wide. It would fund rate increases for all types of programs, school-based, partnership and licensed centers. A third parallel item, entitled “Grants to Head Start Programs” was set at $16.5 million, which is one million dollars less than the legislators proposed.

The Community Action Agency of Somerville, which runs a Head Start program for 220 children, has called these reduced allocations to be “unconscionable cuts that undermine the value and respect for educators.” By contrast, the Governor in her veto/reduction statements said that the funds for these purposes are found in the other programs, which can cover the same needs and same providers.

Will Somerville be facing a shortfall in its state-assisted early education funding? The answer to this question appears to lie in the details of applicability and eligibility that the state Department of Early Education will fix for each program. We will be tracking this carefully.

If you want to learn more or support my campaign, please visit my website at willmbah.com.