An Analysis of the Funding Levels for Beverly Public Schools

The recent announcement regarding the possible termination of the Department of Education by our current administration is a cause for concern for our community. This development follows community discussions regarding the funding and performance levels of Beverly schools during the strike. During this time of uncertainty and misinformation, it’s important to determine if underfunding in fact does exist for Beverly schools and at what level (i.e. local, state and/or federal).

We need to analyze numerous data points to determine if our schools are underfunded at the local level. Actual results of student performance can sometimes be an indicator of underfunding issues. With the recent Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (“DESE”) District report card for 2024, the overall assessment for Beverly was “moderate progress toward targets.” Additionally, per DESE, for every grade 3-10, MCAS performance has been in line with state performance with minimal differences for the “meeting expectations” criteria for most of the grades. And in some cases, certain grades completely outperform the state.

The benchmark that often is used to make an assessment on proper funding is the per pupil expenditure. Beverly’s per pupil expenditure is $4,276 less than that of the state average ($17,249 compared to $21,525 as of 2023 data from the Department of Revenue). This analysis has been used as an approach to make the case that Beverly schools are chronically underfunded. However, to make a fair assessment of Beverly’s funding status, one would need to compare Beverly to cities that have similar demographics, student population, city population and particularly most importantly % of high-need students and % of low-income students. High-need students are defined as students that face greater challenges in learning and need additional support due to factors such as economic and societal barriers.

According to DESE, as of the 2024-2025 enrollment period, 45% of Beverly students are high-need students and 32% are low-income students. Both percentages are lower than the state’s level for these demographics, (55.8% for high-need students and 42.1% for low-income students). This is one of the reasons why Beverly has a lower per pupil expenditure when compared to the state average. Data suggests that cities with a significant per pupil expenditure tend to also have a substantial proportion of high-need and low-income students. Solely, comparing Beverly’s per pupil expenditure to the state average does not give us a complete picture from a funding perspective. When comparing Beverly’s per pupil expenditure to a sample of cities with similar student population and high-need student population we see a different picture. We see Beverly is in line on average with the rest of these similar towns.

Other comparison data points we can use to determine funding status would be revenue and levy data points by the Department of Revenue, total school expenditure in relation to total city’s expenses, demographics of the student population, the % of high-need and disability student population, demographics of the city, etc. Based on these data points below I would not conclude that Beverly schools are chronically underfunded from a local standpoint and that the city was negligible with their funds during the budget process.

However, it is quite a different story from a state and federal perspective. Chapter 70 aid, the primary state program for funding public elementary and secondary education, has not been adjusted accordingly for the recent years of inflation. According to MassBudget because of this oversight, Beverly schools could receive $779K less in aid per year for 2025-2027 ($2.3M for 3 years). If Congress eliminates federal funding to schools following the potential termination of the Department of Education, the Beverly school budget may lose 9% in federal funds. This shortfall will increase pressure on local resources to compensate.

During the strike, we saw blame placed on city officials for not prioritizing or fairly compensating teachers. However, data shows our city is appropriately taxing and allocating funds toward education and provided a historic increase in pay before the strike. Should advocacy efforts be directed elsewhere when local initiatives are reasonable? Historically, less than 3% of the federal budget has been allocated to nationwide education. Should we advocate at the federal level or address state-level aid adjustments for inflation? Our community cares deeply about our children’s education; we just need to target where the real issues lie in terms of funding, and it may not be at the local level. (See Data Points for Education Expense and Revenue below)

Data Points to consider and reference:

Beverly Educational Expense Data points-2023

• Total Education Expenditure $79,686,437 ranked 56 out of 397 towns
• Total Education expense per 2023 Financials was $110,907,290 or 62% of total expense; total expense $177,688,270. Education expense increased by 10% from 2022 to 2023.
• Per Pupil Education Expenditure is $17,249 ranked 331 out of 397 towns. Beverly is $4,276 less than the state’s average, which is $21,525. However, when comparing Beverly to 13 towns with similar pupil population and high-need student %, Beverly’s per pupil expenditure is in line with the rest of the towns. The average of the per pupil expenditure for these selected towns is $17,645.66. The towns with similar demographics and selected for comparison were Bridgewater, Braintree, Billerica, Franklin, Medford, North Attleboro, Westboro, Dracut, Dudley-Charlton, Dartmouth and Danvers.

Beverly Revenue Data Points-2024/2025

• Residential Tax Rate is $11.23; ranked 247 out of 351 towns
• Commercial and Industrial Tax Rate is $21.94; ranked 53 out of 351 towns
• Residential Levy is $102,385,944; ranked 33 out of 351 towns
• Commercial Levy is $16,301,952; ranked 42 out of 351 towns
• Total Levy is $129,833,221; ranked 34 out of 351 towns
• Total Revenue is $173,873,420; ranked 52 out of 351 towns
• Median Property tax rate is 1.12%, which is higher than the national and state median and some surrounding towns.
• Cash has increased from 2014 to 2023 by 158% and revenue has increased by 42% since 2014. However, the city has experienced a negative net position for over five years, primarily due to substantial liabilities recorded in its financial statements.

Above sourced from Massachusetts Department of Revenue website and city’s financial statements