Special to the Record
Senator Sal DiDomenico hosted a legislative briefing on March 4 to educate state representatives, senators, and staffers on the ways high inflation has harmed school budgets and bills that could address funding shortfalls, featuring testimony from Chelsea School Committee member Dr. Sarah Neville as well as other school committee members and policy analysts from across the region.
Current law ensures that state funding for public schools keeps pace with inflation, but only up to 4.5%. As a result, when inflation rose to 7% in 2022, and to 8% in 2023, state education funding was only inflated by 4.5% both years due to this cap.
“Chelsea was the municipality that was most affected by this inflation cap out of the whole state,” said Neville. “The inflation cap took $7.6 million from Chelsea Public Schools, which amounts to $1,200 per student. And this isn’t a one-time loss: if it weren’t for the inflation cap, our school budget would have had $7.6 million in additional funding in 2025, $7.6 million more in 2026, $7.6 million more in 2027, and so on. We had to cut $2 million from our budget this year, but if it weren’t for the inflation cap, we wouldn’t be cutting, we’d be building. We would be investing essential student support services to help students who are struggling, by hiring more tutors and specialists.”
“Public education is one of my top priorities,” said Senator Sal DiDomenico, “and I am proud to be the lead sponsor to eliminate the inflation cap on our education funding to ensure our school districts like Chelsea get all the investments and resources they need even as costs rise higher and higher each year. I will always be an ardent advocate for our schools and teachers so our children can have the best education and childhood we can possibly provide. This cap has hurt our districts and that is why this legislation is even more critical going forward.”
DiDomenico jointly hosted the briefing with Senators Pavel Payano and Robyn Kennedy to highlight the bills they have proposed to address the inflation problem. DiDomenico’s bill would remove the inflation cap, so that if inflation ever soars above 4.5% again, school budgets would not suffer. Payano’s and Kennedy’s bills also propose ways to provide districts with the funding they lost in 2022-2023; these bills would raise Chelsea Public Schools’ budget by $7.6 million per year.