A long-lingering issue tied to leveling the reimbursement playing field for state Excess Cost reimbursements to the town has been resolved with the stroke of Governor Dannel P. Malloy's pen.The Newtown Bee that the legislation may not have happened without the "high quality stewardship" provided from the Newtown state delegation which resulted in the governor signing Senate Bill 179.

The governor's recent signing of implementing legislation will result in the town essentially not being punished financially because of large federal grants received following the Sandy Hook tragedy. Since those strategic incident response grants were counted as revenue to the district, they indirectly triggered reductions to Excess Cost grants coming to the town from Hartford going back to the 2013 fiscal year.

Even though the supplemental incident response funds awarded through Department of Justice (DOJ) and School Emergency Response to Violence (SERV) immediately reverted to exclusively covering program and personnel put in place to support students following the mass shooting, there was no means through which the town could recoup the excess cost reductions - until now.

Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, reported June 21 that the governor signed Public Act 16-188. He told

Senator Tony Hwang, along with Representatives Mitch Bolinsky, J.P. Sredzinski, and Dan Carter all helped shepherd the bill to fruition. The total reimbursement will amount to about $175,000.

"I was pleased to share with the school board that because of the continued legislative commitment to [Newtown's] rebuild and recovery, we will be reimbursed $80,479 for fiscal 2014-15 and $83,284 for fiscal 2015-16," Dr Erardi said. "In addition, we will be forecasting approximately a $10,000 savings for the upcoming school year resulting in a net of over $170,000 of funds."

Dr Erardi said he expects to see the funds forwarded to the town in March or April of 2017.

Over the course of the 2016-17 budget development, Dr Erardi appeared before the Boards of Education and Finance, and the Legislative Council explaining the challenge, but was wary to telegraph any expectations or to forecast revenues he anticipated, but could not verify, until legislation creating the vehicle for reimbursement and savings was codified.

According to the state Department of Education, the Excess Cost Student-Based grant provides state support for special education placements and selected regular education placements. The initial threshold for which a student is eligible for the Excess Cost grant is referred to as the "basic contributions."

For placements initiated by a state agency, e.g., the Department of Children and Families, the basic contribution (or local share) is equal to the prior year's net current expenditures per pupil or NCEP. For local placements or students educated within the district the basic contribution is equal to the prior year's NCEP times 4.5.

The NCEP is calculated by dividing net current expenditures by a factor labeled "average daily membership" or ADM.

Net current expenditures (NCE) include all current public elementary and secondary expenditures from all sources, excluding reimbursable regular education transportation, tuition revenue, capital expenditures for land, buildings and equipment, and debt service, according to the DOE.

Average daily membership represents resident students educated in and out of district, adjusted for school sessions in excess of the 180-day/900-hour minimum, tuition-free summer school and participation in Open Choice. Prekindergarten students are counted on a full-time equivalency basis.

"We were appealing to the legislature for a cost before reimbursement of special ed funds that is illustrated without the [response] grant funding in our operational budget," Dr Erardi explained.

Taking out the DOJ and SERV grants, however, lowers the in-district student cost and dominoes into similar reductions for all students, creating a proportional shortfall in excess cost reimbursement each year the district shows revenue from one or more of the supplemental incident-related grants.

Dr Erardi said factoring the DOJ and SERV grant actual per pupil cost was $15,000 for 2015-16, for example, so the district is responsible for $69,427 before the state considers Newtown for reimbursement.

"It was unfair because the DOJ and SERV grants were used against Newtown in calculating per-pupil expenditures," Dr Erardi said.

The legislation essentially lowered that base to $14,818 per pupil or $66,683 when multiplied by the factor of four. The difference for each outplaced youngster was roughly $3,000, the superintendent said.

That approximately $3,000 times the number of students resulted in savings of $83,284 for that year. The savings for the 2014-15 school year was $80,479.

"We were trying to recapture about $80,000 each year," Dr Erardi said. "My position is that this situation [receiving supplemental SERV and DOJ grants] is unique for Connecticut. And because the excess cost formula was enacted pre-tragedy, our attempt is to be calculated on a cost per pupil that would not include money we're spending from those grants."

The superintendent reiterated that adding incident grant revenue to the annual budget bottom line inflated the per pupil expenditure.

Thanks to this new legislation, Newtown taxpayers will essentially be made whole for four years of reductions in excess grant reimbursements the community was entitled to, but was denied because of the first of its kind infusion of millions of dollars from other sources to help the town respond to the mass casualty incident of 12/14.