Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Money
  • Election 2020
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Money
    Election 2020
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

Want to fix inequities in school funding? Top legislators say property tax reform solves the problem.

  • Education
  • by Jacqueline Rabe Thomas
  • December 9, 2020
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

Jacqueline Rabe Thomas :: CtMirror.org

A school bus drives by the state Capitol.

Three years have passed since lawmakers celebrated passing a budget that aimed to narrow the vast disparities in school spending by zip code by funneling millions more each year to struggling districts.

But that $61 million infusion into the state’s primary education grant hasn’t come close to helping the state’s poorest towns keep up with the increased spending in the state’s wealthiest districts, leading religious leaders on Tuesday evening to call on top Democratic legislators to rethink the “racist and classist” way they fund schools. The coalition has invited Gov. Ned Lamont to be their guest next week.

“The purpose of our meeting today is to draw your attention to the pain and suffering of our communities, caused by the racist and classist school funding system based predominantly on where you live, and property taxes, and where your zip code determines your educational future. We don’t believe that should be so,” said Jeremy Williams, a pastor at Phillips Metropolitan CME Church in Hartford, as he kicked off the forum being hosted Tuesday by Faith Acts, a coalition of religious leaders from 80 churches throughout Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport.

“We thank each of you for the progress you’ve made on school funding, especially in 2017, but we haven’t reached the promised land. The way that Connecticut funds public education is racist, and classist. There are vast spending inequities,” said Iona Smith Nze, a pastor at Bethel AME Church in Bridgeport.

Several participants pointed to the state’s per-student rundown, which shows New Haven spends $18,142 per student compared to almost identical amounts in neighboring Orange and Woodbridge, two communities whose students have demonstrably fewer needs because of housing policies that make it unaffordable for lower-income residents to live there.

In Bridgeport, $15,329 is spent on each student, compared to $19,160 next door in Fairfield and $22,623 in Westport.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, kids in Westport went home with iPads to do distance learning, while kids in the inner city went home with iHopes, where many of the kids in our community hope that they could get a computer and hope that the internet would work and hope that they would have food on the table,” said Danny Bland, a pastor at Mt. Calvary Revival Center in New Haven. “The pandemic didn’t create our educational inequities – we understand that – but they did, however exacerbate them,”

A screen grab of the education funding forum hosted Tuesday evening by FaithActs.

Despite Connecticut’s liberal reputation – and Democrats controlling the General Assembly for the last 23 years and the governor’s residence for nine – the state had one of the largest disparities in education spending between predominantly white and predominantly nonwhite districts, according to an analysis of 2016 fiscal year spending generated by EdBuild, a national think tank that advocates for school funding that levels the playing field. In Connecticut, that study found, districts where more than three-quarters of the students are white spent 17% more per pupil than those districts where fewer than one-quarter are white.

While sympathetic to the financial plight of school districts, several top legislators said during the forum that the solution needs to be broader than the state pouring more money into the education grant. The problem, they said, goes much deeper than that.

“Part of this is the uncomfortable conversation we have to have about property tax and tax reform, generally. We as a state can put additional dollars in [but] those discrepancies that we see between wealthy suburbs and our urban centers isn’t because the state’s not putting in 10 times as much into urban centers, it’s because so much wealth has been concentrated in our suburban areas because they use housing and zoning rules to segregate themselves,” said state Rep. Roland Lemar, a Democrat from New Haven and house chairman of the legislature’s Transportation Committee.

“We need to have a conversation about tax reform and property tax reform. We need to ask more of our high income earners,” Lemar added. “We need to ask more in the way of state government to fix this through property tax reform because we can’t keep putting this burden back on the city of New Haven, the city of Bridgeport … who have so many tremendous needs in their community to make up the difference, when a town like New Canaan can easily just throw a couple extra million dollars into their local schools.”

Property taxes account for 56% of all K-12 revenue in the state – putting Connecticut in second place nationally for relying on local property taxes, according to 2017 data from the U.S. Department of Education. The constant increases over the years in state aid directed largely at the poorest schools hasn’t resulted in a reduction in the share of K-12 spending being covered by local property taxes, state data shows.

That’s likely because of lopsided growth in municipal school spending that favors wealthy communities, according to a CTMirror analysis of data collected by the governor’s Office of Policy and Management. For example, in the state’s 10 wealthiest municipalities, which saw enrollment drop by 2%, spending increased between 2014 and 2018 considerably faster than it did in the 10 poorest communities — 24.3% vs. 13.8% — where enrollment has been flat. Inflation during that time was just 6%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

State Rep. Steven Stafstrom, a Democrat from Bridgeport and the House chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said there are systemic problems with how schools are funded.

“This does go well beyond education,” he told the religious leaders. “Property tax reform absolutely has to be at the center of this. It’s not just about direct education aid.”

Sen. Gary Winfield, a Democrat from New Haven and Senate chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said reforming the property taxes system is critical to fixing disparities in education.

“We could have the conversation just about the dollars in the way that we normally do and not really have the conversation in a way that it needs to happen,” said Winfield. “So anyone who’s advocating on this [education funding] issue needs to be paying attention to all those issues.”

The leader of the state Senate is also eyeing property tax reform, though he did not mention it during the Tuesday night event.

State Sen. Pro Tem Martin Looney, a Democrat from New Haven and the longtime leader of the state Senate, told the Mirror during an interview last week that he plans to introduce legislation in January that would tack a surcharge onto residential property taxes in communities that don’t allow the construction of affordable housing.

“Some of that money could be used to support affordable housing, and other housing, and other equity-related purposes,” he said.

But it’s an uphill battle to get any bold progressive measure across the finish line because the legislature is controlled by lawmakers who represent the suburbs, a point he highlighted during Tuesday’s forum.

Looney said he is working to convince suburban legislators to vote for increased education aid and other items on his agenda.

“We have to build a coalition with the suburbs,” he said. “We need suburban allies.”

Funding formula calls $38.9 million state spending boost next year

And now the bill has come due to fund the formula many legislators celebrated adopting back in 2017.

That formula requires the General Assembly and Gov. Ned Lamont to spend an additional $38.9 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, and another $40 million a year for each of the next seven years.

The 10 lowest-performing school districts in the state would get 61% of the additional aid despite those districts enrolling 20% of all K-12 public students in Connecticut. Waterbury stands to gain the most, with $7.1 million more, followed by New Britain, which will get an additional $3.9 million.

But fully funding the formula will be challenging because lawmakers now must close a state budget deficit. The legislature has a long history of adopting lofty funding formulas with promises to finance them in the future and then dialing back when deficits loom.

For example, the formula adopted in 2017 delayed funding increases because the state faced budget deficits.

Lamont, a Democrat, signaled he may support the increases when asked whether the budget proposal he must submit to the legislature in early February will include the $40 million boost in education aid.

“I haven’t gotten into the line items on the budget yet, but I think you know how important ECS was for us in the last round. A: what that meant to the superintendents [to give] some certainty so you can actually budget. Budgeting in the state over the last 10 years has been a little jerky jerky and numbers changed all the time, and it was very late in the day. So whatever we do, we’re going to give people a clear indication of where we are and ECS is really important to me,” said Lamont.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jacqueline Rabe Thomas is CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter and an original member of the CT Mirror staff. She has won first-place awards for investigative reporting from state, New England, and national organizations. Before joining CT Mirror in late 2009, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. She has also worked for Congressional Quarterly and the Toledo Free Press. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
State launches database showing FAFSA financial aid form completion rate
by Adria Watson

The FAFSA form is critical for students who might receive financial aid for college.

Superintendents association calls on state to increase funding for CT schools
by Adria Watson and Jacqueline Rabe Thomas

A coalition of superintendents is asking for a 2.5% annual increase in state spending for public schools.

Some states train jobless for post-pandemic workforce
by Sophie Quinton | Stateline

Amid high unemployment, governments are spending coronavirus relief dollars on training programs to help workers find new jobs quickly.

For CT teachers, Washington riot becomes a teaching tool
by Adria Watson

After David Bosso saw news of the riot in Washington, D.C., unfold Wednesday, he started thinking about how he would approach the issue with the students in his high school social studies class Thursday. “One of the things we want to do is get them ready for the world,” he said. “This is something that […]

COVID-19 pandemic introduces new factors to CT’s teacher shortage
by Adria Watson

The pandemic has complicated Connecticut's teacher shortage as sick educators have been forced to quarantine.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion Evidence not clear that Trump incited Capitol destruction
by Alan Calandro

Defending President Donald Trump is not popular and I have no interest in writing this other than adherence to truth. Recognizing the truth (if we can find it, which is not always possible of course) should make us be able to come together around that and move on with a common understanding.

Opinion Securing our nuclear legacy: An open letter to President-elect Joe Biden
by Erik Assadourian

Dear President-elect Biden: As you noted in a tweet shortly after protestors stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, “Today is a reminder, a painful one, that democracy is fragile.” Indeed it is. And so are nation-states.

Opinion Last votes of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others
by Gary A. Franks

Finally, the election season is over. The historic elections we saw in this cycle were intriguing. The runoff elections for the U.S. Senate in Georgia put a cap on the campaign season. For many people this could be described as a COVID-19 election. I would argue that this was an election influenced by a pandemic but determined by the killing of unarmed Black people with no adequate justice for the Black community.

Opinion Not just environmental problem; Killingly plant is a great target
by Joel Gordes

In 1990, I was one of five legislators to introduce the first climate change legislation that became PA 90-219, An Act Considering Climate Change, the most popular bill of that session. Back then I considered climate change a national security issue… and I still do.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO