Connecticut School Finance Project

On April 12, 2016, Governor Dannel Malloy proposed revisions to his original February 2016 budget for fiscal year 2016-17. These line-item recommendations for the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) and the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) are included in this document. This summary and analysis compares the FY’ 2015-16 appropriations for the CSDE and OEC with the agencies’ proposed appropriations in the governor’s latest FY’ 2016-17 budget proposal.

When comparing the governor’s latest FY’ 2016-17 budget proposal to the FY’ 2015-16 adjusted budget, there are significant changes in the CSDE budget, including:

1. ($43.4 million) for the Education Cost Sharing grant (Note: Though towns will have decreases totaling $53 million, it appears the General Fund will pick up $10 million for ECS that was separately funded from the Municipal Revenue Sharing Account);
2. ($25 million) for transportation grants, the funding for which is transferred to the Municipal Revenue Sharing Fund;
3. ($16 million) for magnet schools;
4. ($8 million) for Excess Costs special education grants;
5. ($7.6 million) to eliminate summer school and extended day portions and reduce the Priority School District grant;
6. ($3.2 million) to reduce funding for the Regional Vocational Technical High Schools;
7. ($1.6 million) to reduce the Adult Education grant;
8. $62 million for fringe benefits;
9. $10.5 million for charter schools;
10. $3.5 million for Open Choice;
11. $1.9 million for state-administered assessments; and
12. $1 million for the Commissioner’s Network of schools.

For the OEC, when comparing the governor’s latest FY’ 2016-17 budget proposal to the FY’ 2015-16 adjusted budget, there are significant changes, including:

1. ($4.2 million) to eliminate about 1,600 part-time, high-quality preschool slots and over 240 extended-day spaces and replace them with about 800 school day, school year slots (across programs);
2. ($1.4 million) to reduce early intervention programming for infants and toddlers;
3. $2.1 million to fund child care centers (including high quality preschool);
4. $1.5 million which represents costs to create some of the 800 new slots mentioned above; and
5. $1.2 million for child care programs for working lower-income families.

Please note this analysis does not address FY’ 2015-16 estimated expenditures. For example, H.B. 5043, the FY’ 2015-16 deficiency bill, includes an OEC deficit of over $6 million in the Birth to Three program account. Dealing with agency program deficiencies during a “fiscal crisis” is always complicated and rather than address this or any other program shortfall here, only the financial resources (e.g. FY’ 2015-16 appropriations as adjusted and the governor’s latest FY’ 2016-17 budget proposal) for CSDE and OEC are shown below.

Note: This summary and analysis is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as either supporting or opposing any of the provisions in the proposed budget.