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Mayor, SC members express concern over $63.19 million proposed aid; challenge equity of 30-year-old formula
By Steve Freker
Malden School Committee Vice Chairperson Jennifer Spadafora sounded the alarm once again at Monday’s regular meeting regarding the preliminary Chapter 70 state aid funding figure that was proposed recently. While it represented a seven percent increase of around $5.4 million from the FY23 state budget, Spadafora had reservations about the equity of the numbers that are included in Mass. Governor Maura Healey’s second state budget plan, citing far higher proposed Chapter 70 aid for similar districts in the region.
Mayor Gary Christenson, who serves as Malden School Committee Chairperson, echoed those concerns, referencing an “already tight municipal budget” that city officials are dealing with in upcoming deliberations for FY25.
Two of the communities compared to Malden in a chart presented by Spadafora were Everett and Revere, which have similar student numbers in their populations and similar demographics. Everett, which has just 300 more students than Malden’s 6,570, was preliminarily allocated $111,682,212 – nearly twice as much as Malden – while Revere’s preliminary Chapter 70 aid is $98,418,11 – 50 percent more than Malden’s $68.2M, while having approximately the same number of students.
Spadafora, who also announced she will be serving as chairperson of the School Committee’s Budget Committee, said that the members will be getting to work on the formulation of the FY25 Malden Public Schools budget with meetings scheduled beginning this month. Spadafora told those at the meeting “we will be working toward a level-funded budget for [the next school year] and it will be very challenging with these [Chapter 70] numbers.”
The School Committee Vice Chairperson urged all to “contact the members of the state delegation and tell them we need their help.”
“We are working on a formula that was devised in the 1990s. We really need to have it re-examined and brought up-to-date,” Mayor Christenson said, reiterating Spadafora’s plea.
