Chapter 21: Massachusetts¹

The current PK-12 public school funding system in Massachusetts has evolved into a multifaceted program of local property tax revenues, state appropriations, federal revenue, and a small element of private and fee-based revenue. As is the case in most, if not all, states, the bulk of funding is from local property taxes, and state appropriations are largely determined by the state’s funding formula. State appropriations also include a number of grants and reimbursements.

Unlike public school finance in most of the nation, in which school districts are the appropriating and taxing authority, Massachusetts school districts are fiscally dependent on their underlying municipalities² and in effect are the departments of education of city or town government. In those municipalities, school committees (the Massachusetts term for local school boards) operate as the legislature for schools with authority to initiate the local education budget, set policy, hire the school superintendent, and negotiate collective bargaining agreements. In cities, the municipal chief executive officer is usually an ex officio member of the school committee and often, but not always, the chair. School budgets require, at some point prior to finality, the approval of the local appropriating authorities (generally, city councils in the state’s 44 cities/town meetings in the Commonwealth’s 307 towns). These 231 local school districts enrolled approximately 729,000 students in fiscal year (FY) 2022.³