School Money Problems

Are Tearing Towns Apart

Newtown’s continuing struggle to pay for a system of public education worthy of its children has churned up quite a bit of turbulence in municipal meeting rooms in recent months. This growing town not only needs more classrooms for its surging student population, its older schools need attention. At Hawley School, students swelter in late spring and early fall and shiver through the winter. The problem, as always, is that there are more things to do than there is money to pay for them.

Last week, the Legislative Council turned down a $5.4 million heating, ventilation, and air conditioning project for Hawley School because taxpayers had only authorized $3.3 million for it. Earlier this month, the school board announced its was considering a $41 million proposal for expanding and renovating the high school, which sent a chill down the spine of the Board of Finance. Shortly after that, it began to reconsider its plans, thinking maybe what was really needed was a new high school costing $160 million or more. The annual school budget, currently at $57 million, is already tilting at $60 million and beyond.

Last spring, a study by the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Educational Funding (CCJEF) showed that Newtown’s per pupil reimbursement from the state was reduced more than any other town in Connecticut over the past ten years. It dropped from an average of $1,094 in 1995-96 state budget to $690 per pupil last year.

With its growing tax rate and student population, these numbers suggest that Newtown now holds the “Biggest Loser” title. But that dubious honor probably belongs to one of several less affluent communities in the state, which may not have been cut quite so badly as Newtown but has less property tax revenue to make up the shortfall. It probably has higher taxes and worse schools. At least Newtown still has an excellent school system.

The turbulence over school funding in Newtown is but an eddy in a sea of accumulating discontent around Connecticut with the state’s continuing failure to live up to its constitutional mandate to provide “substantially equal educational opportunity” to all children as defined by the State Supreme Court in cases stretching all the way back to Horton v. Meskill in 1977. This week, it appears the state is headed back to court to defend itself against a lawsuit filed by CCJEF alleging that this failure has eroded the prospects of today’s schoolchildren for future intellectual growth and economic and social success. The group is supported in this effort by a broad coalition of municipalities, school boards, and educators, including Newtown.

Public education is a partnership between the state and its towns and cities. Incrementally, the state has been turning its back on that partnership. The result of this creeping neglect is continuous conflict on the local level between the interests of fiscal responsibility and educational responsibility, and it is tearing towns apart. We support this legal initiative by CCJEF. It is once again time for the courts to assess the actions and define the obligations of the state in this dependent relationship the way it would any other deadbeat parent.