“Local aid accounts are critical for municipal budgets and
providing essential services such as education and police and fire protection,
and an early local aid resolution is an important tool to provide valuable
information to the municipal officials who are working now to write city and
town budgets.
Because of that importance, consideration of a local aid
resolution is a welcome opportunity for debate about how best to help our
cities and towns. In that debate we should consider the context of a likely
increase in state spending of almost 5%, and aspire to reach beyond increases
in Chapter 70 spending which account only for inflation and incremental
increases per pupil that resemble those we have seen in the past.
Similarly, if the state budget is going to increase by 5%,
we need to address Unrestricted General Government Aid more than we have over
the past several years, and in a way that addresses the projected performance
of the lottery and the needs of our municipal partners in government.”
