Across the state, local boards of education are experiencing increasing pressures from rising special education costs, transportation expenses, health insurance premiums, workforce challenges, and inflation. At the same time, taxpayers and municipalities are facing their own affordability concerns.

In several districts, local budgets remained unresolved in early June, and disagreements over how to spend last-minute additional state support and taxpayer concerns about budget sustainability have intensified the local budget debates.

The Connecticut Constitution promises that “there shall always be free public elementary and secondary schools in the state.” There could not be a more straightforward guarantee, nor a more challenging one to put into practice.

In 1977’s Horton v. Meskill, the Connecticut Supreme Court struck down a school funding system that leaned heavily on local property tax revenues because it did not account for disparities in wealth between towns. Equalizing state support wasn’t optional, the court said, it was constitutionally required.

In 1988, the General Assembly enacted the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula to ensure that a local district’s wealth didn’t determine the quality of education its students received. The ECS formula has been amended repeatedly in the years since, a sign of both its centrality to school finance and the challenge of getting it right.

In 1996, Sheff v. O’Neill ruled that racial and ethnic isolation were unconstitutional impairments to students’ rights to a substantially equal educational opportunity.

More recently, in 2018, CT Coalition for Justice in Education Funding v. Rell found that public education spending met the test of constitutional adequacy, but left unanswered whether adequacy and equity are the same thing.

Now, Connecticut has another generational opportunity to answer the call. In April, Gov. Ned Lamont signed an executive order establishing the Blue Ribbon Commission on K-12 Education Funding and Accountability, tasking it with delivering a top-to-bottom overhaul of how the state funds our public schools.

The Blue Ribbon Commission presents a rare opportunity to step back from annual budget debates and take a hard look at how to create a funding system that is predictable, transparent, and sustainable over time, that provides equitable opportunities and support for students with differing needs, recognizes the rising costs associated with educating students in today’s environment, and builds a solution that allows funding to keep pace with actual educational costs.

The Commission will allow us to lift our sights from annual budget cycles to seek a long-term approach to properly and equitably funding education for all our public schools, one that ensures every student, regardless of ZIP code, has access to a high-quality public education.

The Commission has until January 15, 2027, to deliver its recommendations to help shape the next legislative session. The  Governor has charged the Commission to develop a roadmap for a more equitable, sustainable and accountable funding system helping to shape future legislative action and improve outcomes for all Connecticut students.

This urgency is not hard to understand. By at least one measure, Connecticut now has the highest funding disparity between high- and low-poverty school districts of any state in the country

Additionally, about 30% of local school district spending comes from state sources, well below the long-held goal of 50%. The Commission has the opportunity to move beyond short-term budget discussions and ask broader questions about equity, sustainability, efficiency, accountability, and student success.

For the 1,400 volunteer members of Connecticut’s local boards of education, this represents a chance to bring forward the experiences of communities across Connecticut and help shape recommendations that support both students and taxpayers for years to come.

The Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, and our members, look forward to engaging in this work. If approached thoughtfully, this could become one of the most significant conversations about public education in Connecticut in a generation.

Meg Scata is CABE President and a member of the Portland Board of Education. Patrice McCarthy is CABE’s Executive Director and General Counsel.