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08/28/2017 12:00 AMAs students across the state prepare to start the new school year, there is still no budget for fiscal year 2017-’18. With legislators struggling against a massive deficit and a ticking clock, multiple budget proposals have popped up since Gov. Dannel P. Malloy presented his budget proposal on Feb. 8, with one funding source in particular the focus of both attention and confusion along the shoreline: Education Cost Sharing (ECS).
The ECS grant is the primary way the state helps municipalities fund their schools. According to an issue brief from the State Office of Legislative Research, the first ECS formula was enacted in 1988 after a court ruling in the mid-’70s ordered the state to create a better formula for education aid.
The amount of money given to a municipality by the grant is theoretically determined by multiplying various factors such local property wealth and number of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch, though how the formula has been implemented (and possibly the formula itself) appears to have changed dramatically, possibly from one year to another.
Unsurprisingly, the logic or fairness of the formula has been the subject of debate. In 2016, the Connecticut Superior Court reviewed the formula in CCJEF v. Rell. The court determined that while the idea of the formula was logical, the theory does not match the reality, pointing to instances in 2016 where some poorer towns were cut while some wealthier towns received increases. The court ordered the state to draft a new plan for the distribution of education aid, but the ruling was appealed by the state and the state’s Supreme Court will now hear the decision.
With no ruling on the formula, the state is currently working through another budget under the existing model. The state entered the new fiscal year on July 1 with no budget and on Aug. 18, Malloy put a dramatic proposal on the table threatening to cut the vast majority of municipal aid if no budget is adopted by Oct. 1 and the state continues to operate under executive order.
For many shoreline towns, the governor’s proposal would mean a complete loss of ECS dollars. In response, House Democrats put a budget proposal on the floor Aug. 23. The plan includes completely cutting ECS aid to 25 municipalities and reducing aid to an additional 25.
The Current ECS Formula
Under the House Democratic proposal, most shoreline towns (with the exception of Madison) would see a return of some level of ECS money in this fiscal year. Special education funding, also known as excess cost, would be held at the same level as the previous fiscal year. Guilford and Branford State Representative Sean Scanlon (D-98) said the ECS formula used by the Democrats has five factors: average cost to educate a student, number of students on free or reduced lunch, number of ELL [English language learners], equalized net grand list per capita, and median household income. Numerous state representatives and senators have praised the idea of using median income and not just property value to complete the formula, pointing out that shoreline towns often suffer when only property value is used due to the average price of homes in the area.
“I just know that the formula we are using here, and would like to use going forward, is one that looks more favorably upon the differences within our community rather than just saying, ‘Hey I went on Zillow and saw that a house is worth this much money so therefore that must mean that you all can afford to pay a higher burden when it comes to this funding’,” said Scanlon.
While the addition of median income may be helpful to shoreline towns, it also points to the larger issue of consistency when it comes to ECS funding.
“There is no ECS formula and the reason for that is because we change it all the time,” said Scanlon. “It is not written in stone, there is no easy way to describe it. They can do any number of different things to determine why one community gets funding and one doesn’t. I think that is a big problem and I think we should change the way we do it.”
The lack of a set formula tends to leave a lot of people, and a fair number of politicians, scratching their heads over how the money is doled out. State Senator Ted Kennedy, Jr. (D-12), whose district serves Branford, North Branford, Guilford, Madison, Killingworth, and part of Durham, said he has yet to meet someone in Hartford who can clearly explain how the formula was initially developed and how or why it has changed over the years.
“The point is that the ECS formula is a complicated formula that no one really understands,” he said. “No one truly understands how that formula is implemented from one year to the next and it is a political formula as well.”
Kennedy said part of the confusion for many is that the formula often overlooks certain funding needs.
“I recognize that there are cities and towns in our state that have a lot of challenges and they deserve more funding than other towns, perhaps because the problems that children face in places like New Haven or Hartford or Bridgeport just require more resources,” he said. “I think most people understand that, but I think at the same time people don’t understand the formula itself and the reality is there are a lot of families in need in my district.”
<p><strong>Understanding Your Neighbor's ECS Grant</strong></p><p>Trying to understand a town's ECS grant in the context of that specific town's public image can be a bit baffling as well, according to State Representative Vincent Candelora (R-86), who represents North Branford and northern Guilford.</p><p>"In some cases I think at first blush you scratch your head and you say, 'How could that community get x amount of money and how could that community not be getting x amount of money?'" he said. "We really have to look at those numbers."</p><p>Using the numbers from the House Democratic proposal, Candelora said intuitively a person might not understand why Guilford receives more money than Branford, but he said you have to look at the total number of students and the number of students on free a reduced lunch—a number that's higher in Guilford than Branford. Looking at a town like Guilford, which would receive around $2.7 million, and a town like Madison, which would receive $0, Candelora said his guess is the difference comes down to median income. According to the U.S. Census, Guilford's median household income is $99,132 and Madison's is $107,183.</p><p>However, even past the "first blush," Candelora said there are some proposed ECS grant allotments that just don't make sense.</p><p>"I scratched my head with Durham...Why is Durham looking at a million-dollar hit?" he said. "In all of the runs I have seen, North Branford and Durham normally track similarly, so we have North Branford that has almost a zero reduction and we have Durham that has a significant reduction. What is interesting is they [Durham] do have a regional district."</p><p>State Representative Noreen Kokoruda (R-101), who represents Madison and part of Durham said while Madison has seen the writing on the wall for a while, Durham's cut was a surprise.</p><p>"I am surprised Branford didn't do better and Clinton—I mean they have pretty high poverty rates," she said. "Madison has one of the lowest poverty rates in the state...The fact is that you want to know what the formula is and that it is not being rigged. That it is fair."</p><p>Guilford and Branford fared well in this most recent Democratic proposal, but while Scanlon said he is pleased to see education aid return to his towns, the formula is a problem that needs to be addressed.</p><p>"The ECS system is completely broken and I think that, whether you represent a city or a suburb, you can recognize that," he said. "The question though is do we have the political will to change a broken system and replace it with something that makes a little more sense? For example, some sort of regionalism where it is not 169 different school districts that are each funded by this arcane property tax system that hurts both cities and suburbs. I hope that I am around long enough in this job to have the opportunity to make a big change to this system and break it once and for all. I am ready to do that at any time, but I don't think the majority of my colleagues are ready to do that."</p><p><strong>The Whole Budget</strong></p><p>While ECS is a $2 billion component of the state budget, it is still just one component. With numbers changing all the time up in Hartford, it's a question whether the House Democratic proposal has the votes to move forward. Kokoruda said House Republicans are working with Senate Republicans to craft a budget. Candelora said the Democratic proposal is not likely to pass the Senate, which is evenly split along party lines, as the proposal does not have the support of all Senate Democrats—or even all House Democrats.</p><p>"Some [Democratic] House members, who have spoken to some of our members privately, said they would not support a sales tax increase," Candelora said. "I just think that the residents of Connecticut have borne this recession enough and we keep putting it on their backs and that is why we are seeing such a sluggish economic agreement in Connecticut compared to all of the other states in New England."</p><p>Kennedy said he is still reviewing the House Democrats' proposal, but said he was pleased to see this budget take a different direction on municipal aid.</p><p>"The answer is not to unfairly single out and punish towns who have already initiated cost-saving strategies and have had a long history of prudent financial planning like many of the towns in my district," he said. "Unlike many other towns in the state, many of the towns in my district have already begun to make the hard choices so now they are suddenly being penalized because they are on firmer financial footing than many other municipalities. I don't think it is fair that they are penalized for that."</p><p>Scanlon said this proposal may not be the final budget document, but he said it is a more accurate model of what the final budget might look like.</p><p>"Things change very quickly up there, but I think everyone—Democrat, Republican, governor, senator, representative—all of us recognize that we need to act and I have been calling for action for some time and I believe this proposal represents us getting very close to acting," he said. "I truly believe we will be voting on something that looks pretty similar to this in the next few weeks."</p><p>State Representative Sean Scanlon will hold office hours on the budget on Thursday, Sept. 7 at 6 p.m. in the Guilford Community Center, 32 Church Street.</p>