Saturday, March 21, 2009
Deal Breaker?
Governor Patrick is shoring up those Western Mass bona fides again. From The Transcript:
Outraged is an emotion I never expected to experience with Mr. Patrick. Obviously, after his gas tax trial balloon and his obvious cluelessness regarding school district funding disparities, I am pretty ticked off. ¶ 11:51 AM
Local officials are seething about Thursday's announcement of $168 million in federal stimulus funds for education -- the bulk of which they say will go to help wealthy towns and cities that routinely fail to meet the state's required minimum contributions.If the Governor's asinine formula considers North Adams and Adams to have a strong "foundation" compared to wealthy suburban districts, then there is obviously something wrong with the formula.
While a few local communities received funding as part of the package, others, such as North Adams and Williamstown, were left out in the cold.
The town of Adams received a mere $30 -- to assist with tuition payments to other districts.
As part of the announcement, Gov. Deval L. Patrick said the funds would assist cities and towns in meeting their obligation to fund their school districts at "foundation" level -- the minimum contribution to run a school district.
Outraged is an emotion I never expected to experience with Mr. Patrick. Obviously, after his gas tax trial balloon and his obvious cluelessness regarding school district funding disparities, I am pretty ticked off. ¶ 11:51 AM
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It's bad enough when the state uses asinine formulas to apportion such money. (The quite rich town I grew up in -- Harvard, MA -- was always getting 2 or 3 times as much as it should, based on the number of Fort Devens military personnel who were technically living in one corner of the town, even though they never used Harvard services, and didn't even have direct road access to the town.) What's worse is when political hacks make these decisions with no basis at all.
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