Last year Ansonia residents saw a .7 mill decrease in the City’s tax rate and this year, the proposed budget for 2015 – 2016 promises an additional 1 mill reduction.
Ansonia Mayor Dave Cassetti needs to be commended as he has had to make some tough choices that affect our children’s schools.
Fifty-six-point-one percent of the total city budget, roughly $34.4 million dollars, is the yearly cost of the Ansonia Board of Education. With $21 million dollars in state and federal educational grants, Ansonia’s taxpayers are responsible for the remaining $13 million each year.
Every year the cost Ansonia’s education system increases and every year state funding decreases. So every year Ansonia’s residents shoulder a greater and greater share of education costs. What is our choice? Allow our schools to go underfunded, or raise the taxes of residents who already struggling to make ends meet.
But it isn’t supposed to be like this. The state created a way to provide equal education funding to cities like Ansonia and allow to support education without crushing residents under an excessive tax burden, Education Cost Sharing (“ECS”).
Unfortunately, ECS is not being followed as designed. Since 2013 Hartford has failed to fully fund ECS, covering only 72 percent of the funding that should have been allocated to towns. While Ansonia ranks as the fourth most underfunded district in Connecticut, underfunded by $4,777 per student, the following towns were actually overfunded in 2010 – 2011: Bethlehem (overfunded by 31.6 percent); Canaan (67.7 percent); Hampton (20.8 percent); and Norfolk (66.7 percent).
If ECS cannot be funded fully, at least it should be funded fairly. I ask you, Ansonia residents, to please contact your state representatives and ask for their assistance on this issue. All we are asking is that Hartford to follow its own rules in applying the ECS formula.
The writer represents Ansonia’s First Ward on the Board of Alderman.
