Funding Our Future

HB 5003 support is crucial for the public school system in Connecticut

It is hard to look someone in the eye and tell them that their future isn’t important to you. Thanks to the rising costs associated with public education, the strangle-hold that the property-tax has as the major funding source, and record high inflation, Connecticut municipalities are all looking at the State Government to accelerate funding of the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant. CCM has created one of the largest campaigns in recent history to motivative voters, State Legislators, and Governor Lamont to tell Connecticut children that their future is important to them by supporting House Bill 5003. With two video ads and several visuals prepared for print media, CCM worked with Adams & Knight on this special campaign to accelerate the ECS funding in a time of budget surpluses.

Statewide campaign received nearly 400,000 views in a few weeks.

HB 5003 is an important commitment to a student-needs based approach in funding our schools. The main takeaways are that it would:

• Modify and fully fund ECS grants, effective FY 2025

• Expand ECS weighted funding to students attending open choice schools.

• Maintain current schedule for towns receiving reduction in their ECS grants.

• Prohibit tuition billing, which helps offset the reduction in ECS for the majority of towns that would otherwise see a reduction in their ECS grants.

• Increase transparency in education funding by providing a predictable state support.

That last point is important, especially in light of the fact that it is clear that municipal and regional school districts need additional funding beyond what was proposed by the Governor and Appropriations Committee.

The COVID pandemic only highlighted the needs in our public-school systems, from the digital divide to HVAC repairs, and the need to support our teachers as they guide our state’s future through their primary education. These issues were present before the pandemic, and we cannot rely solely on relief money to patch this problem.

This is not the time nor the issue to be bound by guardrails if they prevent adequate funding to reach our children in the classroom.

As Executive Director Joe DeLong said in a statement to CT Insider defending the needs of children, “If you were driving along the highway and a family of four had gone over a cliff, you would have to rescue those people. Fiscal guardrails are no different. What we have is a group of children who have fallen behind and they are on the other side of that guardrail.”

No action is a mistake, and failing schools should not be acceptable. HB 5003 is a significant first step in providing comprehensive funding to Connecticut’s public schools, but there is more work to be done. We need big and bold solutions, the kind that would allow us to look our state’s children in the eye and let them know that their future is as important to us as any guardrails we may have put in place.

Mike Cooper Illustration