the low-income cities of Lawrence and Holyoke are the only two communities in the state that will receive more than $2,000 per citizen in state aid during the current fiscal year, according to the Cherry Sheet Manual published by the Department of Revenue (see the larger map below). Meanwhile, only one town will reap less than $20 per citizen: Chilmark, which will get $9,176 (mostly proceeds from the State Lottery) for 945 people. Most local aid goes to public schools in the form of Chapter 70 money—which is based on how much a city or town needs, on top of its own resources, to provide “adequate” education as defined by the Education Reform Act of 1993. On average, 59 percent of a community’s local aid comes from this program, but the share is much higher in cities that get the most local aid overall. In Lawrence, for example, $123 million of the city’s $151 million in aid comes from Chapter 70.
At first glance, the less-populated parts of Massachusetts seem to be local-aid losers, but that’s in part because they have regional schools; when a school district comprises more than one town, education money goes to the district rather than to local governments. When Chapter 70 is taken out of the equation, as shown in the smaller map, western communities fare better, thanks in part to Lottery funds (skewed toward towns with lower property values) and payments for state-owned land (which are exempt from local property taxes).