Good Morning Colleagues,

Personal Property Tax repeal was the big story for last week, but a deal that has been cut on the MPSERS reform bill and upcoming Tuesday hearing on the compromise language may be the bigger headline for most school employees. As reported by MASSP last week, the revised bill drops both the age 60 requirement for receiving retiree health coverage and retroactive application of graded health care subsidies.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up SB 1040, the MPSERS reform bill on Tuesday, May 11, where it is expected they will adopt amendments to strip out the age 60 provision and the retroactive graded health care premium.

With under a week to go before the May 15 Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference (CREC), the House Fiscal Agency (HFA) reported that the FY 2011-12 School Aid Fund revenue collection is up $95 million over the previous January estimate.

According to HFA, higher income tax and sales tax revenue contributed to the state bringing in $163.9 million, or 4.6 percent, more in the second quarter, than it did in the same time period last year. Year-to-date, revenue collection is up 3.5 percent, or $313.5 million.