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Date: 11/2/2023
SOUTHWICK — The superintendent of the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District recently announced the district had received $385,000 in Rural School Aid, a 63% increase from last year.
“That is significant money. That’s real money,” said Superintendent Jennifer Willard during a recent School Committee meeting. “I never would have dreamed of it.”
She said the additional aid will help offset expiring Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, which had been provided to local schools by the federal government as part of its COVID-19 relief efforts.
“We hope to use the rural school aid award to offset the ESSER funding that is set to end in 2024,” she said.
Willard speculated at the School Committee meeting that the increase from $141,000 in fiscal year 2023 to $385,000 in FY24 might provide a way for the district to keep four special education teachers and coordinator.
“This is really good news,” she said.
When Joseph Deedy, the chair of the town’s Finance Committee, was told of the aid, he said it was “wonderful” news and not only for Southwick but also for also for Tolland and Granville. He also mentioned the expiring ESSER funds.
In FY23, the year that concluded June 30, the town allocated $12,252,012 to the school district, and this year $12,940,426, an increase of $688,414, which Deedy called a “tickle” of what’s to come.
The rural aid infusion will help, he said, but it will not alleviate the financial pressures the town will face once it begins working on the next fiscal year’s budget and seeks to find ways to meet the district’s net school spending requirements.
He also said it was about time for the state to realize that it has been underfunding rural school districts.
“For about 10 minutes, they’re finally listening to us,” Deedy said.
Deedy recently warned that voters should be prepared to be asked at Town Meeting about enacting an override of Proposition 2½, which would allow a property tax increase greater than the state-mandated maximum of 2.5% each year.
He also suggested the town’s municipal operations be level-funded, which might mean no employee raises for those not under a union contract, and cutting back on new capital projects.
Rural school aid has been a hot-button issue throughout the state for several years, as residents and administrators of rural districts maintain the funding formula for state education aid doesn’t treat their needs fairly.
In FY23, the state allocated $5.5 million to be spread out across 67 school departments and regional districts that it designates as “rural,” a category that also includes the Gateway Regional School District. For FY24, the Legislature increased rural aid school funding 63% or $15 million.
Rural aid “is really starting to build and gain momentum across the state,” Willard said.
In July 2022, a legislative panel issued a number of recommendations to improve rural education, and the number one recommendation was to increase rural aid to $60 million annually. The rural aid payments had begun in 2020 with an allocation of $3.5 million.
In 2022, 67 school districts qualified for rural aid, for an average haul of $59,701 per district. In 2023, the average for the 67 qualified districts was $84,615, and in 2024 there are 69 qualified districts funded at an average of $200,580.
According to a legislative panel, the aid is vitally needed in rural areas with flat population growth, and small municipal governments that must fund increasingly higher percentages of their school budgets from a stagnant tax base.