Whether it’s the loss of a favorite teacher, cuts to services like tutoring or mental health support, or even the complete shutdown of their school, almost every public school student in Connecticut will feel some type of impact from the expiration of federal pandemic relief funding.
Hundreds of staff members at Connecticut schools could face layoffs as federal pandemic-relief funds expire, and state lawmakers appear unlikely to come to the rescue. A year after signing off on $150 million in additional funding for K-12 education, Gov. Ned Lamont will seek to redirect some of those funds to early child care, his budget chief said Wednesday.
Connecticut school districts have spent $981 million of a total $1.7 billion in federal pandemic relief funds meant to offset the costs of educational expenses like paying teachers and improving facilities, according to a Thursday update by the School + State Finance Project.
State funding for the city’s public school system has increased for the current fiscal year and for the following year. However, those monies still fall short of what advocates say is considered full funding under the state-determined formula.
State legislators and Gov. Ned Lamont have agreed to boost funding for UConn, the state university system and K-12 schools by hundreds of millions of dollars over initial budget proposals.
State Representatives Jeff Currey and Kathleen McCarty join FOX 61's "The Real Story" to discuss H.B. 5003 and the need to fix Connecticut's broken and disjointed education finance system.