Selectmen Back Statewide Education Funding Suit

By John Voket

Suggesting it was a small price to pay to ensure every Newtown public school student enjoys the maximum benefits of state school funding, Selectmen Monday unanimously agreed to invest $5,000 so the town could join the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Educational Funding (CCJEF). By agreeing to join the special interest initiative, the selectmen concurrently aligned Newtown with numerous other state municipalities that filed a lawsuit Tuesday afternoon against the state and Governor M. Jodi Rell.

In previous interviews, First Selectman Herb Rosenthal noted that preliminary statistics supplied to the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities by the CCJEF showed that Newtown in recent years experienced the most significant drop in state funding in Education Cost Sharing (ECS) allocations.

He related similar information to fellow Selectmen William Brimmer, Jr, and Joseph Bojnowski Monday evening.

“I don’t think there is another town that has been more disadvantaged in educational funding in recent years than Newtown,” Mr Rosenthal said. “Newtown’s per pupil reimbursement adjusted for inflation declined more than 49 percent in just the past six years.”

The first selectman said that the decline in state reimbursement has shifted a substantial burden to compensate for this drop in funding to Newtown taxpayers.

“This shift is particularly difficult for local taxpayers on a fixed income, and the elderly,” Mr Rosenthal said.

Until recently, Mr Rosenthal remained on the fence about the ultimate benefits Newtown might receive in exchange for the $5,000 donation to the CCJEF initiative, funds that he said would ultimately help underwrite expenses incurred by Yale Law School students who will be engaged in litigating the suit as it winds its way through the state civil court system.

However, Mr Rosenthal told fellow selectmen Monday, that recent information about similar suits in other states prompted by inadequacies in funding at the state level, or because of shortfalls caused by unfunded mandates including federal No Child Left Behind legislation, convinced him it was time for Newtown to stand with other local leaders supporting the CCJEF.

“The thing that tipped the scales for me on this was that in states where this type of action has been effective to get states to take a serious look at the way they fund education, those states have either been threatened with lawsuits or have had lawsuits filed,” Mr Rosenthal explained.

“In those states, in the initial settlements, the only ones who got funds were the plaintiffs,” he continued. “So if you weren’t a plaintiff, you’re paying the bill without getting the money. If there is any chance of getting a benefit in the settlement, and we are not a plaintiff, we are going to have to wait for the legislature to change the law before we get any tax break on this.”

Mr Rosenthal acknowledged that he is personally not prone to file lawsuits before all other negotiations are played out; he said he understood, however, that there were influential individuals in Hartford who have indicated the best way to inspire the governor and legislators to take fair and equitable educational cost sharing seriously was to file a suit.

“I don’t know how legislators feel, or how the governor herself feels about it, but I know there is going to be some movement this year to appoint a task force or committee to look at the way [the state] funds education,” Mr Rosenthal said. “I think there are 41 or 42 towns and cities to date who are backing the lawsuit and there may be another 12 or 14 by the time the action is announced Tuesday, so there could be a substantial number of Connecticut communities participating in the suit.”

Last week, Mr Rosenthal sought approval from the Legislative Council and received unanimous council support to join the coalition. Mr Brimmer concurred Monday that with the strong recommendation of the council’s unanimous backing, he was more than willing to support the expenditure.

“Newtown has been on the short end of the stick for awhile now and our property taxes are reflecting it,” Mr Brimmer said.

Mr Rosenthal said that more than 80 percent of Connecticut taxpayers agreed that the property tax system was most unfair because there was no correlation between the individual’s assessment and their ability to pay.

“The money [to adequately fund education costs] is going to still come from tax dollars, but perhaps it will be done in a way that is more fair than to tax property based on its increased value,” he said “People can’t usually tap into this increasing property value unless they sell it and move out of the area. It is typically most unfair to the elderly and those on limited incomes.”

According to Steve Cassano, the former mayor of Manchester and chairman of the CCJEF who spoke to The Bee Tuesday, the suit is being filed on behalf of CCJEF’s broad-based membership, 15 plaintiff schoolchildren from some of the state’s lowest-performing school districts, and other similarly situated students attending CCJEF school districts that serve significant high-needs student populations.

“The CCJEF complaint argues that the state’s current school funding system fails to ensure equal educational opportunity for all our schoolchildren, and that it fails to provide adequate revenues to school districts, to equitably distribute the limited resources being made available, or to reflect the actual cost of educating pupils,” Mr Cassano read from a prepared statement. “Those who are especially harmed by the current funding system, the suit alleges, are racial minorities and students who are poor, non-English speaking, handicapped, or otherwise at risk of academic failure.”

Educational Adequacy

Mr Cassano argued that those represented in the suit are not only from some the most disadvantaged communities in Connecticut, but from communities like Newtown and Putnam, where property taxes have increased measurably to fund school budgets that have shifted inordinately away from underwriting new or expanded programs to benefit greater numbers of local students.

A June 2005 educational adequacy cost study, commissioned by CCJEF and conducted by nationally prominent school finance consultants Augenblick, Palaich and Associates (APA), concluded that 92 of the state’s 166 school districts fell short of funding levels deemed to be necessary for meeting 2007-08 NCLB Adequate Yearly Progress requirements. The total shortfall (from federal, state, and local revenue sources) in meeting operating costs alone was estimated to be just under a half-billion dollars.

“Were the state to assume half the cost of adequacy for 2007-08, it would need to boost annual aid to schools by an additional $1.1 billion,” Mr Cassano said.

The APA study also found that 145 school districts are underfunded if 95 percent of students are expected to reach state goals in math and reading on the state’s assessment system. The state’s share of adequacy at this higher level of student performance would require an additional annual investment of $2 billion.

In joining the CCJEF, Newtown becomes aligned with more than 55 Connecticut communities in this broad-based coalition of municipalities, local boards of education, statewide education associations, and related advocacy organizations. The coalition’s growing membership represents a broad base of urban, urban-ring, suburban, and rural municipalities of varying wealth levels; public school districts; statewide professional associations serving boards of education, superintendents, and other school administrators; the two teachers unions and other large unions whose memberships consist of public- and private-sector employees, parents, and others impacted by the performance of their local schools; and parent, child, and social advocacy organizations.