Watertown's School Funds Would be Boosted by Millions Under Governor's Budget

Gov. Deval Patrick's Fiscal 2014 budget has some very good news for the Watertown Public Schools with school aid going up more than $1.6 million from last year.

Chapter 70 school aid would increase greatly under the budget released by Gov. Patrick this week. During a visit to Watertown's Perkins School for the Blind this week, Patrick said the tax increases called for in the budget would be invested in both education and transporation.

State Sen. Will Brownsberger, D-Belmont, welcomed the proposed budget in a post on his website. 

"The Governor, in his fiscal 2014 budget, has proposed to finally complete the education aid reform initiated in 2006. This is extremely good news for Watertown — Watertown had, for years, been badly short-changed by the failure to fully implement the 2006 reforms," Brownsberger wrote.

Under Education Reform, the state is supposed to provide 17.5 percent of each community's "foundation budget," or basic education budget, but last year Watertown received 12.4 percent, Brownsberger said.

On the town side of the budget, Watertown remains about the same in Fiscal 2014 as in Fiscal 2013 - the current budget year. In all, Watertown would receive $107,761 more in 2014.

Unrestricted aid remaining the same at $5.6 million, but the town would get a bump of $107,655 in "Annual Formula Local Aid," according to the information released by the Department of Revenue.