During its 2025 regular legislative session, the Connecticut General Assembly made a number of changes to how the State funds special education, including the creation of a new formulaic grant to support special education services.
On May 7, 2024, the General Assembly passed H.B. 5523, a budget stabilization bill that appropriates funds for fiscal year 2025 and makes a number of different policy changes to K-12 education and other areas. Along with maintaining the $150 million in additional funding for K-12 education in FY 2025 that was allotted as part of the state budget passed last year, the bill overhauls how Connecticut distributes state education funding to school districts.
The Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula uses several components to calculate town ECS grants, including student counts and town wealth data. This projection model details how each of the ECS formula's components impact a town's ECS grant.
The Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula is used by the State of Connecticut to distribute approximately $2.36 billion annually in state education funding. This infographic breaks down the ECS formula and provides an easy-to-understand look at how it is used to provide state funding to Connecticut's local and regional public school districts.
On June 6, 2023, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a new state budget for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 that increases funding for K-12 education to historic levels. This nonpartisan, independent analysis summarizes policy and funding changes related to K-12 education that are included in the budget.
As part of the state budget for fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the Connecticut General Assembly made several changes to the ECS formula, including expanding the types of districts eligible for the formula's Regional District Bonus, and increasing the amount of funding per student provided by the Bonus. This document provides an overview of these changes to the Regional District Bonus, and answers some of the most common questions about this component of the ECS formula.