Researchers at the New England Public Policy Center have released a study that proposes a “gap-based” formula for distributing non-education aid in Massachusetts. The authors suggest that this approach allocates municipal aid in a “more rational and transparent manner, without redistributing current aid.”
Their gap-based approach is designed to target new pools of municipal aid to cities and towns based on their relative need for state assistance. They measured a city or town’s need as the difference between the cost of providing municipal services in a particular town and the town’s ability to raise local revenue to pay for those services.
The study suggests that by distributing any new pools of municipal aid to cities and towns with higher gaps, without disrupting current levels of funding to other cities and towns, the state could improve the distribution of municipal aid in a relatively short time period.
