ANSONIA/DERBY – State Rep. Kara Rochelle says she keeps a running tab on her computer of every single dollar she’s brought to the 104th House seat in the state legislature.
“After each budget I confirm with OPM (state Office of Policy and Management) the final dollar amounts of town aid and education funding, and add them in,” said Rochelle, a Democrat running for her fourth, two-year term to represent Ansonia and Derby in Hartford.
Rochelle said included in that running total is more than $19.7 million over the past three sessions in increases to state education aid for Ansonia and Derby, plus an annual $100,000 grant to the Boys and Girls Club of the Naugatuck Valley.
“I’m not playing around,” said Rochelle, who counts education as one of her top priorities.
Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti, the Republican challenging Rochelle for her House seat, begs to differ.
“When I took office in 2013, our budget for education was $27 million. Now it’s $37 million with very minimal help from the state,” Cassetti said. “We have been funding education all along on the backs of taxpayers of Ansonia.”
Cassetti said Democrats in Hartford have not made things better.
“The frustration is that we are not getting help from Hartford,” Cassetti said. “I want to go to Hartford to be a voice up there for these two communities.”
House District 104 includes Ansonia and most of the City of Derby.
What’s ECS And Why Do Officials Talk About It?
“ECS” is a term often used when discussing school budgets. It stands for “education cost sharing.” It is a form of state aid for local schools. Click here for ECS information from the Connecticut Department of Education.
The ECS grant represents the bulk of state aid toward the cost of educating public school students. ECS money is determined by a formula established decades ago to try and make up the difference between what a community can afford to pay and what it costs to run a school system.
However, the formula, influenced by state finances, was not fully funded for years.
By the mayor’s estimation, Ansonia’s share of ECS funding has been shortchanged by nearly $7 million over the last 11 years.
Cassetti arrived at that dollar amount by taking the difference between what the city receives and what it would have received had the grant been fully funded by the state.
The Ansonia and Derby school districts are both scheduled to receive 100 percent ECS funding next year. Fully funding ECS now does not make up for years of being shortchanged, Cassetti said.
Rochelle said she’s fought to get Ansonia more ECS money.
“I submit a bill every year for full funding, and fought back the year the governor tried to freeze ECS funding,” Rochelle said. “I fought hard and strategically to accelerate funding, not pause it. That is something I am proud of.”
Strings Attached?
Cassetti also said that state education funding comes with strings attached.
He pointed to “alliance district” funding, a type of state aid for under-performing schools that can only be used for school-reform efforts approved by the state.
The alliance district grant is part of the ECS funding for the 36 lowest-performing school districts in the state.
Of the $20.3 million in ECS funding Ansonia will get this year, $5.3 million – 26 percent – must be spent on strategies to increase student performance, according to the School and State Finance Project.
The state holds back alliance dollars until the district submits a spending plan that is approved by the state Department of Education. Cassetti said the arrangement leaves local taxpayers on the hook for school district operational costs.
The spending restriction is something Cassetti said he will change if elected.
Rochelle said the fact that alliance district money comes with strong oversight and goes directly to the school district instead of the city is no accident.
“This is done specifically to prevent communities from attempting to divert such funds,” she said. She pointed to a 2018 lawsuit by Ansonia Public Schools against the Cassetti administration regarding $600,000 the city cut from the school budget that year.
The 2018 Alliance District Lawsuit
In the lawsuit, the school district claimed the city reduced its local contribution to the school district because the schools were receiving alliance money. That’s against the law, the lawsuit said. Click here to read the complaint.
The city maintained the city funds were intended as a stop-gap measure when the state was in a fiscal crisis and months late in adopting a budget. Click here to read the defense the city submitted in response to the claim.
Eventually, the city and district reached a settlement that added $850,000 toward the city’s 2018 – 19 contribution to its school district.
However, the district reported cutting 24 teaching and support staff positions and some programs, according to Rochelle.
That was then.
These days the relationship between the mayor’s office and schools’ chief appears to be solid.
“We have a great relationship with (Ansonia Public Schools Superintendent Joseph) DiBacco,” Cassetti said.
DiBacco, who took the job in 2019, said fences have been mended to the point that the district now has a budget it can work with, and a non-lapsing carry over account of up to 2 percent of the budget that can be used for things such as curriculum upgrades.
A new teachers’ contract has made salaries more competitive. Instead of needing to replace 34 teachers like he did the summer before, this year it was about a dozen.
“We got the budget we needed for the most part,” the superintendent said.
Ansonia Education Dollars
In the 2024 – 25 school year, Ansonia adopted a school operating budget of $37.8 million – a $1.8 million, or 5 percent, increase over last year.
Forty percent of the operating budget comes from the city; 47 percent comes from the state, with grants making up the rest.
Ansonia is tenth from the bottom in local contribution statewide. Statewide, local contribution was 73.4 percent in 2022 – 23.
In Derby, 55 percent of the district’s budget comes from the city, 35 percent comes from the state and the rest from the federal government.
For alliance districts such as Ansonia and Derby, the average local contribution is 50.3 percent.
This fiscal year, Ansonia will get $20,315,782 from the state education cost sharing grant, or $893,514 more than last year – a 4.3 percent boost and nearly 97 percent of its fully funded ECS grant.
The difference between Ansonia’s grant for FY 2025 and a fully funded grant for FY 2026 is roughly $894,000.
Derby, meanwhile, will get $10,597,864 this year, an $815,000 boost from last year and $627,607 from a fully funded ECS.
The data cited here is from OPM the Connecticut Education Department and the School and State Finance Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working towards equitable public school education funding
There are separate grants for things like transportation, excess special education costs and for “priority” school districts – ones that demonstrate low levels of success. Ansonia and Derby both qualify. In fiscal year 2024, Ansonia received a priority grant of $818,000, and Derby, $816,807.
In the last school year, Ansonia had 2,397 students. It spent $18,865 per student that year – nearly $2,300 less than the state average. Its enrollment has been creeping up since the pandemic.
Two thirds of the student population qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Some 8 percent are English Language learners and 18 percent have special needs.
DiBacco says it is becoming more difficult to afford everything.
“The numbers are not decreasing. Costs are rising,” DiBacco said.
Derby, meanwhile, with an enrollment last year of 1,245, spent nearly $23,291 per student, or $2,150 more per student than the state average of $21,143. Some 57 percent of its population qualifies for free or reduced priced lunch, 4 percent are English language learners and 23 percent are identified as having a disability.
Third Party Says ECS Formula Treats Ansonia Fairly In Current System
The ECS formula everyone has focused on for so long starts with a foundation amount, set at $11,525 per student for years. Weights are then added for things like community wealth and student needs.
“I don’t think there are many districts that would claim you can educate a student from that amount,” said Michael Morton, deputy executive director of the School and State Finance Project.
Morton, whose organization provides updated school funding analysis for every district, said nothing in the current formula treats Ansonia unfairly compared to other districts.
Yet, Morton said there are components of the formula that could be altered to help Ansonia, and districts like it, receive more funding.
For starters, the state can boost the foundation grant.
“A Blueprint to Transform Connecticut’s Public Schools,” put out by the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, says an annual raise of 2.5 percent is in order.
Special Education Funding
The superintendents also want the special education excess cost grant fully funded, adjusted for equity factors, and paid on a timelier basis. It’s something Rochelle said she has worked on. Cassetti said he’ll make it happen if elected.
Even fully funded, the special education excess cost grant only kicks in when it costs a district 4.5 times or more to educate a student with special needs than a typical student.
“I don’t think in districts like Ansonia you can ever spend enough money to compensate for the level of need,” said Steven Adamowski, an Ansonia Alderman and former schools superintendent in Cincinnati, Hartford and Norwalk.
“My overall sense is that the district is doing the absolute best it can,” said Adamowski of its spending priorities.
New Ansonia Middle School Funding
In November 2023, Ansonia voters approved borrowing up to $105.5 million to build a new middle school.
Rochelle said she advocated to get the state legislature to pass a bill that increases state reimbursement to Ansonia up to 87 percent of the cost.
A year prior to the bill’s passage, Rochelle said she had legislative leaders, including state Rep. Jeff Currey, the chairman of the education committee, to tour the school and to see firsthand why the 87-year-old structure needs to be replaced.
However, Cassetti credits Superintendent DiBacco, not Rochelle, for fighting to get a higher reimbursement rate to construct a new Ansonia Middle School.
“The superintendent went to Hartford for the increase (then) she said, ‘Look what I did,’” Cassetti said.
Ansonia is eligible for the reimbursement rate as long as the city submits the required paperwork by Oct. 1.
The city, however, has yet to acquire the land, so is not yet prepared to submit the bond request.
“Kara put deadlines on it. She gave us until Oct. 1. That’s not good,” Cassetti said. “We need to extend it out.”
In the upcoming legislative session, Rochelle said she will renew the construction reimbursement rate bill should the city not buy the land in time.
“On the one hand, he states that I played no role in the increased reimbursement rate for the middle school, but then blames me for state-imposed deadlines,” Rochelle said. “Dave needs to figure out what his message is going to be. The fact is that I was a key proponent in getting a higher reimbursement rate for the upcoming construction. His words to the contrary, are simply political nonsense.”
Both Say They Fight For Funding
Rochelle said education is one of her top priorities. In college, she majored in English and has a certificate in adolescent education at the master’s degree level.
In her first term, Rochelle introduced legislation to expand college level Advanced Manufacturing Certificate Programs into more high schools across the state. The bill passed with unanimous bipartisan support.
In the last session, Rochelle served as Majority Whip at Large and vice-chair of the Higher Education & Employment Advancement committee.
According to her website, she has also helped expand school-based health centers, increased funding for childcare workers, improved the special education reimbursement formula, and secured millions for new job training programs.
She said she also fought to fund a teen program in the Boys and Girls Club.
“I made it happen,” she said, adding there are more than 200 kids in the program now.
Rochelle said her full-time commitment to the job has paid off.
She has the endorsement of both the American Federation of Teachers-CT and the Connecticut Education Association, the state’s two largest teachers’ unions.
“I think people deserve someone who can focus on you up in Hartford, not just showing up and pressing a button. And, frankly, I think most residents of Ansonia want a mayor who is full time,” Rochelle said.
Midway through his sixth, two-year term, Cassetti said his intention is to keep his day job as mayor should he win a House seat.
He said he can do both and that his knowledge base as a mayor will serve him well in Hartford. Under his leadership, the mill rate has been slashed, Main Street has been revived, schools are better funded, and new businesses have moved to the city. There’s a spirit in Ansonia that has been lacking for decades.
Cassetti said he wants to bring those successes to the state while getting more money for education.
“I know the conditions on the ground and am able to relate to people,” Cassetti said. “I am going to be very vocal when it comes to shortchanges from the state. Ansonia needs their fair funding on education.”
Working Relationship?
Conversations between the mayor and Rochelle appear to be few and far between. Over the years their supporters have hurled insults at each other on Facebook. A separate Valley Indy story on political mudslinging is coming soon.
Cassetti said Rochelle has never been in his office to ask what is needed.
Rochelle said she reached out to the mayor in her first year and set up monthly meetings that she hosted. Half the time, she said, he didn’t show.
She said she put her number in his cell phone.
“He never called me once,” said Rochelle.
“First of all, Kara needs to understand that the state rep works for the mayor of that town,” Cassetti said. “She doesn’t understand that. She thinks she is the boss and that is wrong.”
Rochelle called it interesting that Cassetti uses the word “boss” when talking about her.
“I always say that I have 25,000 bosses, my constituents, and they all matter equally to me,” she said. “I’m a strong advocate for them and I won’t apologize for that.”
Click here for a previously published Valley Indy profile of Rochelle.
Click here for a previously published Valley Indy profile of Cassetti.
Click here for every Valley Indy story on the race.
