North Middlesex subcommittee reviews options to ease school transportation funding shortfall

NORTH MIDDLESEX REGION — The North Middlesex Regional School Committee legislative and fiscal subcommittee met Oct. 10 in a virtual session to review district transportation funding and explore legislative options to reduce local budget pressure.

Keenan, a subcommittee member who presented the analysis, summarized state policy and district data and said Massachusetts requires regional school districts to provide yellow‑bus transportation for all students and that, in principle, the Commonwealth is supposed to fully reimburse those costs. He presented five years of Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) data (snapshot taken Oct. 1) showing swings in entitlement and reimbursement rates and said the district has faced gaps “between $50,000 to $150,000” in recent years when actual reimbursements lag entitlement figures.

The presentation summarized two filed bills — H.697 and S.328 — that Keenan said are identical and would direct DESE to include a request to fund 100% of the Commonwealth’s obligation for regional transportation in its annual ask to the Legislature. Those bills were described as having been heard June 3 by the Joint Committee on Education; committee members present referenced testimony from local superintendents at that hearing.

Keenan outl…