State School Aid to New Britain Up 56% Since 2012; Grant Will Reach $115.5 Million By 2025

“Flat Funding” Claim By Mayor Stewart Is Contradicted By The Actual Numbers

By John McNamara

The new state budget adopted last month brought increases in Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) funds to the New Britain School District over the next two years.

The $11.9 million increase approved by the legislature and Governor will bring the total ECS grant for New Britain to $115,488.010 million by fiscal year 2025. That means there has been a 51% increase since the 2012-2013 budget year, according to the state Office of Policy and Management.

State Education Aid

This year’s bump from the state is welcome news for a school system facing rising costs to implement some of the school administration’s goals that were identified during the municipal budgeting process earlier this year.

In a May opinion column in The New Britain Herald, Mayor Erin Stewart contradicted the actual numbers for ECS money. She claimed that state support for the city’s schools has stayed almost the same during her terms in office.

“I’m willing to bet that you did not know that for the past 11 years the state has nearly flat funded our ECS grant,” Stewart stated in what one member of the city’s legislative delegation called a “flat out lie.”

Stewart’s argument is “for expediting the process of equitably reworking the Educational Cost Sharing grants formula to help communities like New Britain fully fund our public education systems.” But her inaccurate assertion that “nearly flat funding” has occurred for New Britain over 11 years undermines the cause of tax reform that will end reliance on property taxes to pay for public schools.

The new state budget continues the pattern of the city’s school system receiving annual increases in ECS money. By contrast, the Mayor’s budgets for public education have remained largely flat for the past decade. In a reversal this year, Stewart added an estimated $1.6 million in municipal support for schools. Stewart says the increase is $5 million for schools but an estimated $3.4 million of the $5 million is one-time funding not applied to operating expenses, according to BOE members. “The small increases for schools has not kept pace with inflation over Stewart’s ten years of budgeting,” A New Britain Progressive analysis stated last April. “Taking inflation into consideration, Stewart’s $127,500,000 proposal for city school operating funding, in 2023 dollars amounts to only $98,809,590 in 2014 dollars, a $24,390,410 cut from the funding level in 2014. This makes the real amount of school operating funding from the city 19.80% less than when Stewart took office.”

The bottom line shows that New Britain received $103,550,543 in ECS money for the year ended June 30th. That increases to $107,212,343 in this fiscal year and $115,488,010 in the current year for a two-year increase of 11.5%. Overall, statutory formula aid, including ECS, goes from $128,876,348 for 2023 to $144,315,583 in the 2025 fiscal year continuing annual boosts in aid from state government.

These confirmed totals illustrate the importance of state aid in containing regressive property taxes that have soared for most property owners because of new assessments and a 12.58% jump in spending by the Stewart administration.

As stated in the tax notices residents received from Mayor Stewart this month, the city’s mill rate on real estate and personal property would be an unsustainable 67.61 “without state dollars.” That is because of increases year after year in statutory formula aid from Hartford to New Britain government.

(Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly put the Educational Cost Sharing grant for New Britain at 61% higher since 2012-2013. The percentage increase is 56% from $76,583,631 to $115,488,010 budgeted for the 2023 fiscal year.)

Editor’s note: The percent increase was corrected as 51% rather than 63%.