Legislators maintain they had a solid agreement with Lamont’s administration last year as part of the two-year budget for an additional $150 million for K-12 public education, but that total has not been placed into the latest budget recommendations.
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.
Mayors, clergy and school district leaders mobilized in Hartford Thursday to urge Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly to fast-track state education funding in an attempt to scale down public schools’ impending fall from a fiscal cliff carved by the expiration of federal COVID relief.