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Bill

S 337

Allows municipal commissions to use alternate lists for filling vacancies with resident and non-resident minority group members and women in order to achieve diversity in police departments

2025 Regular Session Introduced by Jamaal Bailey

Requires the regional district expenses to be allocated evenly by attending students among member towns, shifting shares based on student counts.

REFERRED TO CIVIL SERVICE AND PENSIONS
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Bill Summary · S 337

Summary — S 337 (2025) — "An Act relative to school district funding"

Note: The bill metadata provided contains conflicting information (a title about police-department diversity and sponsor names that appear to be federal senators). The actual text submitted with S 337 in the packet amends Massachusetts school law (chapter 71, Section 14B) to change how certain school district expenses are allocated. This summary focuses on the statute text contained in the bill document.

Main purpose

To require that specified expenses of a regional or multi-town school district be allocated among the member towns on an even-per‑student basis — i.e., proportionate to the number of students attending from each town — rather than by some other allocation method.

Key provision(s)

  • Amends Section 14B of chapter 71 of the Massachusetts General Laws by inserting the following requirement (inserted after the word “expense” in the cited line): “provided that all such expenses shall be allocated evenly, relative to the number of attending students, among the towns in such a district.”
  • The change is textual and narrow: it prescribes the basis for apportioning “such expenses” (the term as used in the existing section) among member towns.

Who is affected

  • Regional and multi-town school districts and their member municipalities in Massachusetts.
  • Town finance officials, school district treasurers, and school committees responsible for preparing budgets and assessments.
  • Municipal taxpayers, because the method of allocating district costs among towns determines each town’s share of the district budget and thus municipal tax obligations.
  • Potentially school funding administrators and state officials who oversee district agreements and accounting.

Potential impacts

  • Redistribution of cost burden among member towns: towns with proportionally more or fewer attending students may see increases or decreases in their assessed share relative to prior allocation methods (which may have used fixed formulas, property valuations, prior agreements, or other measures).
  • May require renegotiation or amendment of regional school district agreements, updates to budget processes, and changes to billing and accounting practices.
  • No dollar amounts or estimated fiscal impacts are provided in the bill text; the net fiscal effect would depend on current allocation methods in each district and student‑population patterns.

Legislative status and procedural notes

  • Introduced: January 30, 2025.
  • The provided legislative action list is internally inconsistent (references to multiple committees, hearings, and actions on varying dates). Items in the record include referrals to committees (Education; Civil Service and Pensions; Commerce, Science, and Transportation), a scheduled hearing (05/12/2025), and a committee report entry dated 05/21/2025. Because the history in the packet is contradictory, consult the official Massachusetts Legislature website or bill tracking system for the authoritative, up‑to‑date status and exact text language.

If you want, I can: (1) pull together likely fiscal/municipal examples showing how town shares would change under a per‑student allocation, or (2) draft suggested bill language to clarify terms such as “all such expenses” and the effective date.

Compiled from official sources — confirm details with the bill’s official record.

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