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Schools

Schools, State Struggle with Funding Grant Shortfall

State education funding to municipalities expected to be flat for third straight year

In an ordinary year, Superintendent of Schools Irene Cornish would consider her 2.64 percent budget increase to be a modest one.

But with the state facing a projected $3.5 billion deficit for 2011-12, schools around Connecticut are facing the prospect of a third straight year of level funding in their annual Education Cost Sharing grants.

Cornish has submitted a 2011-12 budget request of $98.4 million to the Board of Education, an increase of nearly $2.4 million. That includes the same $20.49 million in ECS funding that Stratford received for the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30.

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 "It's going to be hard," Cornish said. "Even if state aid remains the same (as opposed to cuts), our costs go up, just like in a household. Even if you don't get a pay raise I know my electricity is way up. Oil and gas are up. Expenses are up."

Cornish said she has not yet heard much feedback from parents and taxpayers. But even if the board, Mayor John Harkins and the town council approve her budget untouched, cuts will include three teachers and an administrative assistant.

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It could be worse.

 The state has used more than $270 million in federal stimulus money in each of the last two years to offset its regular contribution to ECS funding, though the federal government had warned against doing so. The stimulus money has covered more than 14 percent of Hartford's ECS obligations in the last two fiscal years, but goes away on July 1.

David Bednarz, spokesman for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, said Monday that the governor is committed to finding enough money to keep to school districts level. He released details in his budget address to the General Assembly on Wednesday.

Marc Dillon, chief of Staff for Mayor Harkins, said Malloy has made the same assurances to municipalities.

State Rep. Terry Backer, D-Stratford, said voted against the budget the last two years specifically because it relied too heavily on borrowing and one-shot funding such as the stimulus money.

"We're going to have some hard choices to make," Backer said.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, has not given up on restoring at least part of the ECS shortfall with additional federal dollars, even with Washington facing deficits of its own.

"With the economy at the edge, I cannot support a (federal) budget that slashes education and training, help for pregnant women, Meals on Wheels, and fuel assistance for seniors," DeLauro said in a statement issued by her office.

The Board of Education is reviewing Cornish's request, and has the authority to make cuts, increases or approve it as is. From there it goes to Harkins's desk.
 The mayor subsequently will make his own recommendations for school and town spending in 2011-12 to the Town Council.

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