This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
03/21/2017 03:15 PMWith a heavy amount of uncertainty surrounding the state budget weighing on town officials, the Board of Education (BOE) invited Guilford state representatives Sean Scanlon (D-98) and Vincent Candelora (R-86) to their March 13 meeting to ask questions and gain insight on the current shape of the budget.
Governor Dannel Malloy on Feb. 8 released his proposed budget, which includes a sizable reduction in state aid for Guilford as well as a new town contribution to the teachers’ pension plan. With the state not finalizing a budget until June and the legislature’s budget proposal not expected until late April, Guilford officials have had to make some assumptions on revenue losses to be ready for the town budget referendum in mid-April.
At the meeting, board members and legislators discussed numerous elements of the town budget, but particularly focused on education funding, unfunded mandates, and the teachers’ pension plan.
In the governor’s budget, the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant, a program that serves as the state’s primary financial resource to help municipalities run their schools, has been completely zeroed out, taking the town’s total ECS grant from $2.7 million this fiscal year to nothing in the next.
The majority of municipalities would lose ECS dollars under the governor’s proposal, and Candelora said that is not sitting well in Hartford.
“I think both sides are very concerned about this shifting of aid from some towns to fewer,” he said.
Neither Candelora or Scanlon sit on the Education Committee up in Hartford, but they both said with a likely reduction of some level of state aid coming to towns, the committee is starting to take a hard look at unfunded mandates.
“This year I think there really is a concerted effort to apply a little more common sense and pull back some of those mandates that are overly broad,” Candelora said. “…They want to give some towns cost-saving measures.”
For now, Scanlon said there are still may unknowns when it comes to funding, but said the state is going to have to make compromises when crafting their budget.
“The parties have different opinions about what they feel like are the ways forward and the governor has his own position. I think there is going to be some meshing of those plans for two reasons,” he said. “Number one, the legislature is comprised of legislators who are from suburban towns that got whacked pretty significantly in this budget, and number two, the legislature is essentially tied” between Democrats and Republicans.
Teacher Pensions
While the cuts in aid are a concern, the big point of contention at the meeting was the possible municipal contribution to the teacher’s pension plan outlined in the governor’s proposal.
For years, teachers have contributed six percent of their salary to their pension; the state has committed to paying two percent of the average of the three highest years of a teacher’s salary multiplied by years of service, with benefits not to exceed 75 percent of salary in a teacher’s highest paid years. However, with contribution rates on the rise and the system notoriously underfunded, the governor is looking to push one-third or roughly $400 million of the contribution onto municipalities. For Guilford, that would mean a bill for $2,865,342.
Town officials have previously said they believe this proposal will not stand and Candelora said he does not believe the legislature has the stomach to shift all of that cost onto municipalities. However, BOE members expressed concern that even if the pension plan doesn’t hold this year, municipalities might be forced to contribute in future.
BOE member Ted Sands said the pension plan has been poorly funded for years and municipalities would be forced to contribute funds without having any say in how the plan is managed.
“The legislature hasn’t put money into the plan over the past 30 years at anywhere near where the actuaries said, so the plan has been underfunded. It is now in a semi-crisis state, and the governor’s answer is. ‘Let’s see if the towns can do it,’” he said. “I find that very hard to accept.”
Both Scanlon and Candelora explained that poor management of the pension plan dates back for decades and is now coming to a head.
“The reason [the governor] is coming to you, and I am not defending him, is we can’t afford [the pension] anymore and it is only getting worse and worse,” said Scanlon. “You didn’t make the deal and I get that. He is looking to you for help on a problem that none of us created.”
If municipalities have to start paying part of the pension fund, BOE Chair Bill Bloss said towns need a seat at the table when it comes to how the fund is managed. At the meeting, the board unanimously voted to support a proposal by the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents that would require the state to study the teacher retirement system to make structural changes so that it is sound and sustainable.
“Just adding money to it isn’t going to help,” said Bloss. “…There is no easy out, there is no popular out, there is no out that doesn’t have pain for somebody or maybe for large groups of people, but we appreciate the advocacy.
“We will work cooperatively with you,” Bloss told the legislators.