The city’s delegation to Beacon Hill is working to find additional funding for the Pittsfield Public Schools as the district works to make up more than $4 million in budget cuts for next school year.

A supplemental budget passed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives on March 18 includes a $300,000 earmark for Pittsfield for special education transportation costs. It's one of several efforts by lawmakers to find dollars to help the Pittsfield district and neighboring rural districts.

The funding for the $1.8 billion supplemental budget, for the current fiscal year, comes from revenue collected under the Fair Share Amendment, also known as the "millionaires' tax."

While school districts across the county are facing difficult choices, Pittsfield’s situation stands out: The district is attempting to reinvent its middle school program and address longstanding inequities while navigating a $4.3 million budget deficit. Those financial difficulties are a factor as the School Committee considers whether to close Morningside Community School in June.

“The idea is we might be able to save a few positions,” state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield, said Friday. “Whatever we can do to blunt this is what we’re trying to do.”

Farley-Bouvier also said she’s watching to see if Pittsfield will qualify for additional “minimum aid” in the coming budget year under a state program for underfunded districts.

Because Pittsfield has received additional state funding to help educate its high percentage of students in poverty over the past several years, it has not qualified for “minimum aid.” That program guarantees additional funding to districts in communities where local and state school funding isn’t enough to offset increased costs.

Now that Pittsfield is no longer at “Tier 11” for aid to high-poverty districts — a change resulting in much smaller growth in aid for fiscal 2027 — it might qualify for minimum aid funding this year, Farley-Bouvier said. If that's funded at $150 per pupil, as last year, it could help save more positions, she said.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Paul W. Mark said he’ll work to support that earmark when the body takes up its version of the $1.8 billion supplemental spending bill. He also said he’d look for opportunities for additional funding “to narrow the gap for Pittsfield specifically."

“If we can add a couple hundred thousand dollars, that’s my No. 1 priority for this particular budget bill,” he said.

County lawmakers agree that the state’s education funding formulas need an overhaul, and that many lawmakers support such an effort.

“We need to address the whole problem," Farley-Bouvier said. "It took 10 years to do the last [formula]. We need to start that rolling immediately.”

She added that such efforts should remain focused on districts with a high density of high-need students and rural districts facing both declining enrollment and increasing expenses. The Student Opportunity Act, for example, provided significant investments for gateway cities such as Pittsfield, but wasn’t nearly as helpful to rural regional districts.

“For the rest of Berkshire County, the rural district funding is really problematic,” she said.

State Rep. John Barrett III, D-North Adams, said he’s spoken with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and he's concerned that without action, a citizen lawsuit will force the Legislature's hand.

And state Rep. Leigh Davis, D-Great Barrington, is a House co-sponsor of a Senate bill seeking to better align the funding formula with actual costs for expenses such as special education, transportation and communities' ability to pay.

“Whether it’s the inner city of Boston or the smallest towns in my district or the Cape and Islands, it’s impacting everybody,” Mark said. “We’ll work together with our counterparts to try to figure out how we take this money and make sure it’s invested in the smartest way possible."

That said, Mark is wary of funding formulas as “magic bullet” solutions.

“There is this idea that you can find something that works for everybody, and that’s not really the truth,” said Mark, whose district includes Pittsfield (population 43,959) and Rowe (population 424). “You need targeted investments to be made to make sure every community is being treated fairly.”

As for rural aid, Davis and Barrett were co-sponsors of an amendment adding $2 million to that program within the supplemental budget.

“It’s a big deal for these districts, because they’re hurting bad,” Barrett said.

Davis also obtained another $2 million for the special education "circuit breaker" that helps districts defray high costs. Pittsfield, for example, is counting on more than $3 million from that source in fiscal 2027.

"It's a step — not the solution — but I'll keep pushing until we fix the formula and deliver the level of support our rural schools truly need," Davis said.

Barrett also successfully obtained $100,000 to continue the Northern Berkshire Regionalization Committee undertaken by four North County school districts. That study has stalled for the moment, as bids submitted by consultants exceeded the $125,000 in grant money available for the work.