Stamford Joins Fight to Demand More School Funding from the State

Members of the Stamford community gathered at Wednesday evening for some Public School Finance 101.

Mayor Michael Pavia and members of the Parent Teacher Council, the , the , the Board of Finance and Stamford Public Education Foundation co-hosted a school funding forum to inform residents of a lawsuit filed by the the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding (CCJEF), a nonprofit organization comprised of 100 municipalities, including Stamford, against the State of Connecticut to force the state to reform its system so that funds are fairly and adequately distribute across all public schools.

The funding formula, according to the CCJEF, is outdated and fails to reflect the trust cost of ensuring educational opportunity for all students. A CCJEF report, released in 2007 and based on 2006 data, estimated that if the formula were remodeled Stamford could receive $68 million in funding — nearly 10 times more than it currently receives.  

At Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting, Starr said the district hasn’t been receiving its fair share of funding from the state for years. “Stamford doesn’t get the short end of the stick — it doesn’t even get on the stick.”

Being an urban district, Stamford has special needs, Board of Ed member Heftman said. “We have an urban school system in Stamford and that diverse population needs a lot of special services, whether it is for the gifted students, special education, or English language learners. There’s a population of students that need a lot of attention and we can’t do it year in and year out by asking taxpayers to pay more and more.”

Connecticut residents pay the second highest property taxes in the nation, although the state is the second lowest in terms of investing in K12 education," Dianne Kaplan deVries, project director of the CCJEF, said. “We need to make sure that the high wealth of some parts of the community doesn’t negate from the state’s support.”

The model CCJEF would like to see would base funding primarily on the needs of students and rely less on local property taxes.

“Historically this funding approach is seriously flawed," Pavia said. "The mathematics of the formula is complex and not the issue here, it’s the fairness of the allocation of those funds."

On March 22, 2010, CCJEF won a lawsuit against former Gov. Jodi Rell when the Connecticut Supreme Court issued a landmark decision citing the state was responsible for providing children with a quality education. CCJEF has since executed a discovery committees and collected data to proceed in the Hartford Superior Court to ensure the state reworks its funding formula. The organization represents cities of various demographics and median income across the state including Bridgeport, Newtown, Danbury, Waterford and Simsbury.

How to spend this new money was another topic. Suggestions from attendees included covering special education costs, increasing global language learning in the elementary schools and increasing music and arts education. deVrie confirmed that any additional funding received from the state would go directly to the Board of Education, not the city.

Looking toward the future, CCJEF is hopeful and said the new governor, Dannel Malloy, was the first mayor to sign onto the coalition during his time in Stamford. deVrie urged attendees and other the residents of Stamford to call their local representatives in Hartford to make school funding a priority.