Stewart Flat-Funds Schools Operating Budget Again

Mayor Erin Stewart (R) has proposed no increase in operating funds for New Britain’s schools for the upcoming budget year that begins in July, making her total city operating allocations for city schools over her twelve years as mayor just 3.48% higher in total – an average increase per year of only 0.29%.

Stewart’s latest $273,493,952 budget plan for fiscal year 2026 provides 46.8% of the city budget to the school operating budget. That is a more than 5% reduction from the 52% of the city allocated to education in fiscal year 2014.

With inflation taken into account, the $128 million Stewart has proposed for the next fiscal year is about $29.8 million less operating budget than the city allocated to New Britain’s schools in fiscal year 2014.

Stewart has often been criticized for a pattern of low city funding to New Britain’s schools. The low city education funding been tied to low test scores in the city’s schools.

As in the past, Stewart’s new budget plan includes funding in a nebulous “non-operating” budget line under “Education Department”. Since the city has been forbidden under state law from cutting school operating funding from one year to the next, calling it “non-operating” is widely considered an attempt by Stewart to sidestep both this rule and to assert power over the Board of Education beyond what state law allows by granting the money on a discretionary basis. Stewart proposed $2,646,191 in this line, which is $1.1 million more than this year, but $2.2 million less than the 2024 budget year.

Stewart’s budget plan leaves the city’s current tax levy approximately the same as the actual collection reported for the current budget year, but more than 40% higher than in fiscal year 2014.

Editor’s note (4/9/2025): The article was updated with a correction to the calculation of the cut in the percent of the city budget allocated to the schools operating budget.