In Testimony, Mayor Urged CT Legislature To Increase K-12 Ed Funding

NEW HAVEN, CT — Thursday, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker provided testimony before the CT General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee on the Governor’s Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2026-27. Elicker urged lawmakers to increase funding for students by updating the state’s outdated K-12 Education Cost Sharing formula, "So that it more adequately and equitably supports students educational needs," his office noted in a news release.

"Education is one of the most foundational building blocks of opportunity for our young people. It unlocks future opportunities in learning, careers, life and overall well-being," Elicker said in his testimony. "Conversely, the consequences of a lack of adequate and equitable education funding are clear – when we underinvest in our students, they pay and we pay as a society both now and later."

Specifically, his office noted that Elicker "urged state lawmakers to take up the recommendations of the 119K Commission’s Young People First report (page 43), which calls for increasing the state’s per student foundation amount from $11,525 (and which hasn’t changed since 2013) to $12,488 per pupil and to index it to inflation moving forward."

He asked for "more adequate and equitable state funding of Connecticut’s highest-need students by adding a weight for students with disabilities and increasing the weights for multilingual learners and students living in poverty."

Link to video of Mayor Elicker's in-person testimony.

At the start of the 2025 legislative session, Elicker and New Haven Public Schools' Superintendent Madeline Negrón joined mayors and superintendents of Connecticut’s five largest cities to urge Gov. Ned Lamont and the state General Assembly to take up the recommendations.

Mayor Elicker's written testimony:

"We likely all agree that education is one of the most foundational building blocks of opportunity for our young people. It unlocks future opportunities in learning, careers, life and overall well-being. Conversely, the consequences of a lack of adequate and equitable education funding are clear – when we underinvest in our students, they pay and we pay as a society both now and later. We are seeing the impact and consequences of underinvestment – as 119,000 young people across the state remain at-risk or disconnected, with 10,000 more young people adding to that number every year.

We urge you to increase state education funding for students across the state through increasing weights in the ECS formula for our high-needs students (low-income and multilingual learners) and adding a weight for our students with disabilities.

The state’s per student foundation amount is currently $11,525 per student – and it has not increased in over a decade since 2013, despite average inflation of 2.77%. Municipalities like ours have increased our local contributions to our school districts to account for this – over the last five years, New Haven has increased its local contribution by 50% ($45.7 million to $68.8 million), but the average New Haven home’s tax bill has also increased almost 20% over the past few years. Without additional state support, such as the lack of adjustment to the foundation amount, over $654 million of education funding has been shifted into local property taxes.

Cities like New Haven tend to serve a higher proportion of high-needs students – with approximately 83% of our approximately 19,000 students considered high-needs students, while the overall state proportion is approximately 55%. And yet, New Haven spends less than state average per-pupil-spending – $20,451 per student (in 2022-23) while the state average was $21,143 per student.

This underinvestment in our higher-needs students has contributed to significant staffing shortages and fewer resources for our students. Per staffing guidelines, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) would need 700+ more staff in order to have the number of teachers, social workers, librarians, etc. to meet the needs of our students, approximately $35 million to be fully staffed. Currently, we have approximately 46 school counselors for almost 19,000 students across 43 schools, which would be a ratio of 408 students per school counselor. We have approximately 32 school psychologists, which would be a ratio of 595 students per school psychologist. We have 53 social workers, which would be ratio of 358 students per social worker – particularly at a time when the rate of our students experiencing homelessness has increased significantly, jumping 150% from 2022-23 to 2023-24.

For special education staffing alone, NHPS would need more than 148 staff to be fully staffed, which would be approximately $8 million in staffing needs alone.

In FY 2023-24, the state ended the year with a $400 million surplus in its general fund, $4.1 billion in its Budget Reserve Fund, and over $1 billion set aside due to the volatility cap. And while the fiscal guardrails since 2017 have commendably helped to address the past 70 years of underfunding of our required retirement contributions and they are helping to ensure the state’s long-term financial future – our students need our investment now. Even as the fiscal guardrails have a compounding effect, so does education.

We urge you to take up the recommendations of the 119K Commission and increase education funding for our students.

Thank you for your time and consideration and I strongly encourage your support."