Education Cost Sharing and Excess Cost grants are not the same thing

To the Editor:

In recent budget discussions, our First Selectman has not only used the terms “Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant” and “Excess Cost grant” as if they were interchangeable, but has also proposed a significant cut to the Board of Education’s budget. These actions reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of how Connecticut funds local education, and that misunderstanding matters when it is used to justify reducing support for children in our schools.

The ECS grant is Connecticut’s primary source of state aid for the basic education of all students. It is a formula-driven grant that considers town wealth and student need and then sends general operating dollars to the district. ECS is broad, system-wide funding.

The Excess Cost grant is something else entirely. It is a limited, partial reimbursement that applies only when an individual student’s special education needs are so intensive that the district’s costs for that one child exceed several times our average per-pupil expenditure.

Even then, the state frequently does not reimburse the full eligible amount because the statewide Excess Cost pool is capped and prorated. Excess Cost funding does not relieve the town of its overall responsibility to fund support for children receiving special education services or general education.

ECS can rise or fall based on statewide decisions and our town’s demographics. Excess Cost can swing dramatically depending on a small number of high-need students and the level of capped state reimbursement. Neither is predictable nor generous enough to justify a significant cut to an already “no-frills” school budget.

This confusion is made worse by the fact that our First Selectman does not attend Board of Education meetings, where the details of student needs, contractual obligations, and mandated services are discussed in depth.

The Board of Education regularly hears about rising special education requirements, the increasing number of students requiring special education services (now about 20 percent of the school population), transportation costs, and other state and federal mandates that the town must fund regardless of how much ECS or Excess Cost aid arrives.

Choosing to stay away from those discussions, while simultaneously cutting the education budget and publicly mischaracterizing state grants suggests that our chief elected official is making high-stakes decisions without engaging with the facts that schools confront every day.

Monroe’s families and taxpayers deserve clear, accurate information about how our schools are funded and what the state actually covers. Before making large reductions to the education budget, we should insist that our leaders demonstrate a basic understanding of the funding tools they are discussing and the limits of those tools in protecting the quality of our schools.

When our chief elected official confuses ECS and Excess Cost grants, it obscures the real impact of his budget decisions: larger classes, fewer supports for students who struggle in the classroom, and diminished opportunities for the entire student population.

Chrissy Martinez
Member, Monroe Board of Education, D

Jerry Stevens
Member, Monroe Board of Education, D

Alan Vaglivelo
Member, Monroe Board of Education, D

Identifications are for affiliation only; we are writing as individuals, not on behalf of the Monroe Board of Education.

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