Bill > H434

This bill proposes changes to how state education aid is distributed to cities and towns, aiming for a fairer system by giving equitable weight to both property and income when assessing a community's "ability to pay" for education, alongside the current measure of the number of students. It introduces a new definition for "local share of the foundation budget," which will be calculated based on a percentage of a municipality's foundation budget (the estimated cost of providing a certain level of education) and its median income compared to the state average over three years. Crucially, the bill grants each municipality the choice to receive state aid either as currently determined by Chapter 70 Section 10 or by a new method outlined in Chapter 70 Section 10A, which would be the difference between their foundation budget and their newly defined "local share of the foundation budget."