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Walsh to set up school-building authority
By adamg on Tue, 01/13/2015 - 8:06pm
In his State of the City address, Mayor Walsh said he wants to set up the authority to fund the state-of-the-art schools he said Boston schoolkids deserve.
He said the authority will start with overhauls of the Boston Arts Academy in the Fenway and the upper Quincy School - and creation of a ten-year facilities plan for all Boston schools.
Walsh also announced a program with software company SAP to help Charlestown High School students take technology classes at Bunker Hill Community College.
He also addressed the more general issue of the state of Boston Public Schools:
Yes, we have some progress to celebrate - maybe more than other big cities. But families with school-age kids aren’t celebrating. A lot of the time they see a great school - quite literally - as a prize in a lottery.
Think about that. In the city that established public education; a city with the greatest universities in the world; access to an excellent public school is seen as a lucky break. Meanwhile, more than 30% of our high school students don’t graduate in 5 years. That is just not acceptable.
Next month, I will get the names of the final candidates for the next superintendent of the Boston Public Schools. Whomever is selected for this job, my message and orders will be clear: I am not satisfied. The Boston Public Schools can do much better for our kids. We have to do better. We will do better.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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 Walsh's State of the City address | 280.21 KB |
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Comments
All schools everywhere should
All schools everywhere should be managed by professional real estate people, and be treated the same as other municipal properties. The business of teaching should go to the school dept. The school dept. should not be allowed to get their mittens on the real estate.
It pretty much is ...
The city's Property Construction and Management Department does handle sites, renovations and new construction. They have skilled specialists, and hire architects and contractors. The School Department isn't managing real estate and construction. They are more the client, providing feedback on the program and needs for the schools.
Ok I wasn't aware of that ,
Ok I wasn't aware of that , but that is not usually the case. But what is this new deal going to do that the old authority isn't doing already.? Or is this going to be a new level of beaucracy?
The City of Boston has
The City of Boston has struggled over the past several years to work with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), which can provide up to 70% of the cost of renovating or constructing schools. (The MSBA is funded by a dedicated portion of state sales tax revenues.) The Mayor has said that the city "left $1 billion on the table" in MSBA funds that should have been available to Boston.
The new Boston authority would do two things, it seems:
- Reorganize and hopefully improve how school construction is managed. So it would replace what's there now, not add another layer. It would be a better partner for the MSBA.
- The Mayor has said that he will seek a dedicated revenue source to fund Boston's portion of the capital costs for schools; such as a portion of the meals tax.
These steps also represent more of a commitment to maintaining and constructing schools in Boston. There wasn't a real commitment to that in the last administration.
Mayor Walsh also wants to do some things differently - to plan ahead for where there may be more or less need for schools; and to make the schools more flexible in terms of the grades they can accommodate. The population changes tend to come in waves, so school systems always seem to have too few seats in some grades and too many in others.
So a much bigger commitment to school facilities; and a smarter approach.
'' The Mayor has said that
'' The Mayor has said that the city "left $1 billion on the table" in MSBA funds that should have been available to Boston.''
Sheesh , thats major incompetence.
'' The Mayor has said that he will seek a dedicated revenue source to fund Boston's portion of the capital costs for schools; such as a portion of the meals tax.''
What about the propert tax? Doesnt that fund things, is this to be a new tax?
Thanx for your time, not busting them , just trying to understand.
Thank you change of administration.
This kind of institutional ineffectiveness getting cleared out is the big advantage of having a change of administration, even if there aren't major policy differences or party affiliation changes.
'Education mayor' Or not.
Lots of competition for property tax
Well, that's a bigger question that I can't claim to be an expert on. But experience shows that there is a lot of competition for property tax revenue, including the police, fire and all other city departments. And costs go up every year. The City hasn't been able to allocate more to schools. I suppose the idea is to try something else, something other than a tax increase.
And in an economic downturn, it gets even harder to balance the budget.
But the City's bond holders want to see an ability to pay every year. One of the issues, it seems, is how to make capital commitments to schools without weakening the City's credit rating.
I can claim to be competent on that
The city has three sources of revenue:
The property tax - roughly 60% of the income and the only one that's growing faster than inflation
State aid - which has been flat around $400 million or for years and is a shrinking piece of the budget. Now around 15% of the total. With the major budget deficit on Beacon Hill we may have to brace for a mid-year cut which the city generally doesn't deal with very well.
Everything else - a hodge podge of excise taxes, fines, permits, interest on cash/investments etc.
Recessions aren't terrible for the city - the worst case (FY 2010) the budget didn't grow, but it didn't shrink. The property tax goes up by the max - 2.5% every year plus an allowance for new growth - which is a bump even in the worst recessions. Over time this revenue source increases about 4-5% annually. State aid is not likely to go up much and may even fall over time. All the other stuff is too small individually to make much of a difference without a new source of revenue - but with the budget going up long term about twice the rate of inflation - you have to wonder why they need new revenue sources.
From there everything goes in one bucket and gets doled out. The fastest rising piece is easily "fixed costs" - and this doesn't include health care. It's pensions, debt service, assessments from the state for a host of things - MBTA chief among them. Yes - Boston subsidizes the MBTA - which effectively reduces our "net" state aid further. The only other parts of the budget that get more money every year are schools and public safety. Everyone else is asked to cut. At the rate we are going we quite literally will only be able to pay fixed costs, schools and public safety in a decade or two. At the rate of growth of pensions and other fixed costs (about 8-10% a year) in 2-3 decades the only thing we will be able to afford will be our fixed costs.
Yes there's a lot of competition for property tax - and everything else in the bucket as well. But the pigs are in need of more water than the bucket can hold and they are breeding.
The part about pigs breeding
The part about pigs breeding in a bucket, that's so cute. They must be miniature pigs, all pink and adorable. Your competence is adorable too.
Made up of existing employees
BTW, Herald coverage:
- The School Building Authority will be made up of existing employees and will go after state funds
- According to the city, sales tax from Boston in the previous fiscal year generated $56 million to the Massachusetts School Building Authority but the city got back only $9 million.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2015/01/marty_wa...
Why?
I guess the the last mayor was a liar? Mayor Walsh appears to be a man of action. Let's face it most schools in Boston were built by the WPA about 1932. The savings alone with New Green Buildings will make it highly cost effective. I suggest that with over 50% of the students coming from Dorcheter and Roxbury that most of the schools be built in those neighborhoods and cut down on the busse$.