The School and State Finance Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy organization, has proposed a bill to help underfunded schools get additional state funding sooner rather than later.
The Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula is the method the state uses to distribute approximately $2 billion annually in state education aid to local and regional public school districts.
In 2017, state legislature adopted a ECS formula that would incrementally and annually increase funding to schools it considered “underfunded” and decrease funding to schools that are “overfunded” over a period of ten years, beginning in 2019.
The finance project has worked with state legislators on a bill, H.B.5003, for the past two years to get underfunded schools fully funded by July 1, 2024 instead of later.
The New London public school district could get $4.8 million more for the 2025 fiscal year under the proposed bill as opposed to the current law, based on preliminary numbers.