Over the past few weeks there has been numerous discussions about education funding since Judge Moukawsher ruled in Rell v. CCFFE that the current distribution of education funds to less wealthy towns like Ansonia was unconstitutional. The lower court ruled that the funding formula was not fairly followed and the current system was unfair to the communities in most desperate need of more education funds — such as Ansonia and several other small towns across the state.
The ruling has now been appealed, and whether the ruling is upheld or not, one thing has become abundantly clear and that is the education funding to the Ansonia Public School District is not and has not received its fair share of education dollars our great community is entitled to from the State.
As a lifelong Ansonia taxpayer and member of the Ansonia Board of Education, I see firsthand how our small town struggles with its limited resources to fully fund our children’s education.
While the current Administration has funded Education more in the past 3 years than any other Administration in recent memory, The BOE remains challenged to meet teachers’ salaries, fund school programs, and comply with the ever increasing amount of unfunded mandates dictated by the State.
Over the last fiscal year, Ansonia received only 74.2 percent of the funding under the current deficient formula. Compare our 74.2 percent with that of other communities: Greenwich received 164 percent; Madison 212 percent; Westbrook 217 percent; Guilford 181 percent, and Waterford received 208 percent of funding.
Like many of you, I am left asking, why hasn’t Ansonia received our fair share of education funding? And why are other, more affluent communities receiving such a greater percentage?
With the November elections just around the corner, I find it interesting that our local legislators are in the papers with stock sound bites taking credit for just about everything and anything that is happening in Ansonia — whether they were involved in the process or not. In many cases we don’t hear from them with any regularity during the year and now that the education funding issue is on the forefront of the discussion in every community, they are coming out in full force.
Smaller, less wealthy communities like Ansonia cannot continue to balance the education budget on the backs of taxpayers year after year. We need more aggressive support from our local delegation all year long – not during election season only.
I write this column as a taxpayer and not on behalf of the BOE. However, I do believe both our local incumbent State Representative and State Senator could advocate harder — and more consistently for more dollars for Ansonia Public Schools.
Had this been the case, we could have brought home more of Ansonia’s fair share of education funding from the State over the past 10 to 12 years. Voters have to hold our legislators more accountable and demand that they explain why they have voted in favor of underfunding our schools over that time. I would like to see a solid public debate on this issue between all four candidates for State Representative and State Senator.
Unfortunately, I recently discovered that both incumbents are refusing to publicly debate their challengers before the elections and I find this to be very unfair, as it deprives the voters from seeing first hand what the incumbents have done – and plan to do in Hartford to be worthy of our votes. It is no longer acceptable to use the stock answer, “I stand on my record” as to the reason for not agreeing to debate.
There are so many important issues facing our community and local voters should be able to hear from the candidates directly before making an informed decision in this key election year. There is still time for the candidates to schedule a couple of debates locally. Past accomplishments are not predictors of future successes.
We need a state representative and state senator that will stand up when challenged, and not duck the tough questions and refuse to debate.
The writer is an Ansonia resident and member of the city’s Board of Education.
Editor’s note: The Valley Indy runs letters to the editor. We call them guest columns. It’s incorrect to assume the opinions reflect those of the Valley Indy.
