The Legislature has enacted the FY26 state budget, which includes several key investments in public education across the Commonwealth. The information below highlights major education-related funding items, including updates from the most recent supplemental budget that impact FY26 allocations.
As always, we will continue to monitor any additional budget activity or adjustments throughout the fiscal year. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.
Chapter 70: Increases Chapter 70 education aid by $497M, meeting the funding schedule in the 2019 Student Opportunity Act while increasing minimum new aid from $30 per student to $150 for FY2026. Three-quarters of school districts (245 out of 318) benefit from the minimum aid increase.
- Chapter 70 Funding Study: Directs DESE to study components of the state’s K-12 school funding formula related to local contribution requirements and report back to the Legislature by June 30, 2026.
UGGA: Increases Unrestricted General Government Aid by $14M, a 1.1% increase over FY2025. The appropriation represents a compromise between the House’s proposed level-funding and the Senate’s proposed 2.2% increase.
Circuit Breaker Reimbursement: Funded at $485M, to go along with $190M from the recently signed Fair Share Supplemental Budget, for a total of $675M in FY2026. This is expected to meet the state’s obligation.
Charter School Reimbursement: Funds charter school reimbursement at $199M, which (according to the House’s April 2025 budget letter) is expected to cover 100% of the state’s statutory obligation to mitigate Chapter 70 losses to charter schools.
Regional/Vocational School Transportation: $53.7M for regional school transportation, and $50M to support both regional school and out-of-district vocational transportation (the latter item was historically funded in a separate line item). $8.1M was also included in the Fair Share Supplemental Budget to support FY2026 regional school transportation needs. In FY2025, regional school transportation was funded at $99.5M, and out-of-district vocational transportation was funded at $1M. Overall this represents an increase of $11.3M year over year.
McKinney-Vento: $28.6M for the transportation of homeless students. According to updated cost projections from the DESE, the figure represents 58% of anticipated claims for FY 2026.
School Meals Reimbursement: $180M for universal free school meals. The first year of the program served 97.5M lunches total, and about 557,000 students every day, and many were served with locally sourced food.
Rural School Aid: $12M for the grant program that helps districts facing the challenge of declining enrollment to identify ways to form regional school districts or regionalize certain school services to create efficiencies.
Green School Works: $10M to fund the Green School Works grant program – this is in addition to $10M that was included in the Fair Share Supplemental Budget. The program was established in FY2024 to provide financial support to public school districts to install or maintain clean energy infrastructure.
Capital Grant Program for CTE School Opportunities: The Fair Share Supplemental Budget includes $100M for a grant program to expand career and technical education (CTE) opportunities through capital improvements, long-term leases, and annex buildings at comprehensive high schools. At least $35M must be directed to comprehensive high schools, and a minimum of $15M is designated for a pilot program to support CTE annexes on comprehensive high school campuses.
Early Literacy Tutoring: $25.6M for an early literacy high-dosage tutoring initiative. The program supports public schools and districts in partnering with approved providers to address pandemic-related learning loss and accelerate literacy growth for students in grades K–3.