State lawmakers and education officials say they have no intention of giving up in the biggest battle this year between Gov. Ned Lamont and school advocates over K-12 funding at the state Capitol. There is.
Lawmakers claim to have struck a firm agreement with the Lamont administration last year as part of a two-year budget that would add $150 million to K-12 public education, but that total will be added to the new fiscal year. July 1, which is not included in the latest budget proposal.
Instead, lawmakers say the Lamont administration is breaking that promise by cutting the original $150 million by removing increases for charter, magnet and vocational agricultural schools. At the same time, Lamont is calling for a $43 million increase for early childhood education as demand for child care increases.
The battle will unfold in the coming months, with each side offering its own statistics and arguments as lawmakers race to complete a $26 billion state budget by the end of the regular legislative session on May 8. are doing.
Kate Diaz, president of the state's largest teachers' union, spoke out against the proposed cuts at a news conference last week, arguing that the state has historically lagged behind in education.
“At the end of the day, the important thing to remember is that we have never fully funded education,” Diaz told a standing-room-only audience at the Capitol. “That never happened. Otherwise, my starting teacher salary wouldn't have been $48,000. So I think we really need to understand. All of these people before going to school have never really done the really hard things that it takes to earn a reasonable middle-class wage in Connecticut, an expensive place to live.”
Looking at the big picture, we see that Connecticut spends billions of dollars on public education each year, and tens of billions over the past decade.
Mr. Lamont's budget calls for sending $2.362 billion in state money to cities and towns in the upcoming 2025 fiscal year in the largest category of education aid, the Affordable Care Grants. This is an increase of $345 million from $2.017 billion in fiscal year 2019, when Mr. Lamont took over. The ECS grant is just a portion of the total spent by local governments, which rely heavily on property taxes for most of their local school budgets.
When all sources are combined, Connecticut spent $11.4 billion in the 2022-23 school year, an average of more than $21,000 per student, according to the Governor's Budget Office. This total does not include state contributions for debt, school construction and teacher retirement.
The Hamden-based Schools + State Finance Project reports that Connecticut spent nearly $12.4 billion on K-12 education during the 2021 fiscal year. This total is based on U.S. Census Bureau data and includes school construction costs and teacher pension payments. This amounts to 58% paid by local communities, 36% paid by the state, and 5.4% paid by the federal government.
The current standoff at the state Capitol centers on $43 million for early childhood education and $48 million proposed to be subtracted from the original $150 million for K-12 schools. It becomes.
![Gov. Ned Lamont has said there is limited room to stay below the spending cap because the state is investing heavily in education. At the same time, educators and advocates say public schools are not getting enough funding. Lamont stood in an earlier photo with budget chief Jeffrey Beckham and his chief adviser Natalie Braswell.](https://i0.wp.com/www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2022/07/07/6O6QITEXXJESDH72AGNUQLXHIE.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1)
christopher keating
Gov. Ned Lamont has said there is limited room to stay below the spending cap because the state is investing heavily in education. At the same time, educators and advocates say public schools are not getting enough funding. Lamont stood in an earlier photo with budget chief Jeffrey Beckham and his chief adviser Natalie Braswell.
Rep. Jeff Currie, co-chair of the Education Committee, hosted a news conference Thursday with advocates representing school boards, superintendents and local governments, with both Democrats and Republicans in attendance. Curry has been the most outspoken member of Congress, saying the Lamont administration must honor last year's promise to spend $150 million on K-12 education.
“We stand here in solidarity today to demand that the governor keep his promise,” Curry said, flanked by lawmakers and other supporters. “For years, we've been in this fight and every year we've been told 'no'. And we've just said, 'Okay, we're going to come back next year and we're going to fight even harder.' Just say it. They told us that's right, so we never expected something like this to happen on a historic $150 million investment. ”
Lamont also wants to significantly increase funding for early childhood education, but lawmakers believe the state's relatively strong budget situation can cover both costs. In recent years, about $8 billion was set aside to help pay down the state's pension debt because the state's surplus was larger than expected.
“I went into a short session and believed I could take it a little bit easier, just playing around with the edges,” Curry said. “But it seems like we all woke up about a week and a half ago and had something else in mind. … Early childhood deserves similar respect and dedication this year. . We can do it, and we should do both.”
Curry added, “Trying to pit us against each other is not the way forward. The appropriate path of least resistance is to invest in both. … We're going to do this together.”
Eva Bermudez Zimmerman, a former lieutenant gubernatorial candidate and current director of the Child Care for Connecticut Future Coalition, said her organization was silent just because of the prospect of large amounts of funding for child care. He said he couldn't stay there.
“People outside this room are telling us, 'Give us the money.' Run. Why does it matter where it comes from? Early treatment costs money. It's not what you want. “Isn't that what it's all about?” Zimmerman said. “It's different when it's on the backs of other kids. It's different when it's on the backs of the teachers who sacrificed in the K-12 system. Yes, we need money, and we still do. That is necessary. But we need to ensure unity.”
![Eva Bermudez Zimmerman is a strong advocate for early childhood education, but says the increase should not be forced on children in the K-12 system.](https://i0.wp.com/www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2018/08/16/VP6DGZLEABDUDF4BJJOOZHRQKU.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1)
Susan Hay/Associated Press
Eva Bermudez Zimmerman is a strong advocate for early childhood education, but says the increase should not be forced on children in the K-12 system.
Spending
The first fight over funding will take place in the school board and appropriations committee. Advocates say that unless funding is somehow restored or replaced, local school boards could cut programs, raise property taxes or lay off paraprofessionals and teachers. claims.
State Rep. Kathy Osten, a central figure in the debate as co-chair of the budget committee, said during a hearing last week that lawmakers need to look at the broader picture.
“Our concern is that the public thinks our schools are sitting on an egg when the egg may already be cracked,” Osten said. I warned my colleagues on Capitol Hill.
During the hearing, Osten said that Rep. Kathleen McCarty, the top-ranking House Republican on the committee, would vote to break state spending caps to provide more education funding. He joked that he was looking forward to it.
McCarty disagreed with that characterization, adding, “Where there's a will, there's a way.”
“And the only way is if you have more money,” Osten replied.
But Lamont countered that there is still more than $400 million available in the federal government's ESSER, which stands for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund and was created during the coronavirus pandemic. That includes more than $60 million each in Hartford and Waterbury, $41.6 million in Bridgeport, $37.5 million in New Haven and more than $30.5 million in New Britain.
“Sometimes people think there's a cliff, but it stops within six months. That's not true,” Lamont said recently regarding federal funds. “I think they can invest another $400 million over the next two years. We're trying to honor that commitment to our schools because great schools are an important part of our state.”
Lamont added, “Nobody's getting cut. Maybe they're not getting increases as quickly as they would like, but nobody's getting cut.”
Jeffrey Beckham, Mr. Lamont's budget director, said Mr. Lamont is proposing a wide range of education funding in the overall $26 billion budget.
“The current budget disguises municipal aid as education funding, essentially converting the aid budgeted for Magnet and Vogue students into classrooms rather than adding resources for classroom learning. We're sending it back to local school districts as a fee subsidy,” Beckham said. “Our proposal would increase ECS funding, fully fund charter schools and VO-AG schools at the statutory amount, and increase per-pupil subsidies for both magnet schools and open choice schools. Support the continuation of free school breakfast across the state, subsidize students' reduced-price meal shares, and permanently fund the nationally recognized LEAP program that addresses chronic absenteeism. If the General Assembly was serious about ensuring that every student in Connecticut succeeds, it would support the governor’s proposal.”
child care trust fund
House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford, a key figure in final budget negotiations, said lawmakers will cover all requests as millions of dollars flow into the state treasury starting April 15, the traditional tax deadline. He said he won't know until late April whether there will be enough money to do so. This includes the millions of dollars in state income taxes Fairfield County millionaires and billionaires whose portfolios have recently grown as Wall Street stocks hit all-time highs are paying from capital gains. It is included.
Regarding magnet schools, Ritter said: “I don't think funding is at stake. I think advocates have a job of convincing people. We're not kings and queens. We have to work with people. But my feeling is that it won't be affected.”
Ritter floated the idea of putting child care money in a trust fund that exceeds the state's spending cap, which the state Legislature created last year.
The trust fund does not change the guardrails that Mr. Lamont and the Republican Party have vowed to hold fast to.
“You create a trust fund. What are we supposed to do? Stare blankly?” Ritter asked. “You could potentially invest some of that money in a child care trust fund. Is it outside the cap? Yes. But it's a trust fund. It's been established that it's outside the cap. That's all we want. …It doesn't affect our rating agencies or our credit ratings or anything like that. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. It's only February. And if April goes well… , a higher-than-expected operating surplus would make a lot of this stuff easier to talk about.”
Ritter, who has negotiated delicate budget deals for years, predicts a compromise will eventually occur under the Gold Dome.
“Our distance is $300 million to $400 million. [overall]But we’ll get there,” Ritter said. “I'm very confident.”
Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com.
CT Budget Battle: UConn and Institutions of Higher Education vs. Lamont. Much is at stake.