Clinton Could See More Education Dollars from State

According to members of the Governor's ECS Task Force, the town of Clinton should receive an additional $607,000 to $650,000 a year in state funds for education. That's their opinion anyway.

Some towns, such as Fairfield, Greenwich, Hampton, Kent, Ledyard, and Monroe, for example, have been recommended by the committee to receive less funding than in the previous year.

The task force recently released its initial findings for 169 Connecticut towns and cities. A copy of the report is attached in .pdf format to this article.

In their report, "they believe that the recommendations if adopted will lead to a fairer and more predictable allocation, and a more understandable and reliable process."

In their report, the committee said they based their recommendations on several objectives including complying with state constitutional requirements for the equalization of educational opportunities, helping close the achievement gap, eliminating the uncertainty of the ECS grant amount, establishing a way to determine town wealth that is more equitable, determining a new measure of student need, and other factors.

The committee drew up two scenarios for all towns: one called "hold harmless" meaning no one is losing ECS funding. The other scenario is "not hold harmless" in which some towns show a decrease in funds from '12-'13. 

These are the committee's recommendations for Clinton:

Entitlement 2012-2013 Subcommittee Recommendation Hold Harmless $6,502,667 $7,110,104 Not Hold Harmless $6,502,667 $7,153,053