While Gov. Ned Lamont is calling for the overall state budget to increase by $1.2 billion from the current year, legislators and advocacy groups are concerned about cuts and changes to various programs ranging from magnet schools to home-care services.
As the state legislature has been holding public hearings recently on Lamont’s $28.7 billion proposed budget, advocates have stepped forward to raise concerns about the governor’s plans.
Among the biggest concerns in education is a proposed cut of $12 million for magnet schools. The annual budget for those schools at the state level would drop from $344 million to $332 million under Lamont’s proposal for the fiscal year that starts on July 1. The tuition charged to the sending schools, which are mainly poorer urban districts, Lamont says should be increased to make up for the $12 million.
The Connecticut Association of Urban Superintendents, which represents more than 20 urban districts like East Hartford, Meriden, and New Haven, questions the proposals at a time of rising costs.
“Magnet school operators would be permitted to increase tuition — resulting in major financial impacts for sending districts, including an estimated $2 million increase for New Britain alone,” the superintendents said. “There is no commitment to fully fund the state’s existing obligation for special education excess cost reimbursement, leaving districts to shoulder an unsustainable financial burden. [Superintendent] leaders warn that these proposals could further strain already stretched school systems, potentially leading to reduced programs, larger class sizes, and increased pressure on local taxpayers.”
During a recent public hearing, former Bridgeport and Hamden superintendent Fran Rabinowitz told lawmakers that the money is important.
“Please restore the magnet school tuition $12 million,” said Rabinowitz, who has served as the executive director of the state superintendents association since 2017.
Overall, Lamont’s budget calls for huge amounts of education spending, including $2.45 billion for educational cost-sharing grants that are sent to schools in all 169 cities and towns. That includes $226 million for the Hartford public schools — the highest total for any community in the state. Bridgeport would receive $212.7 million, compared to $201 million for Waterbury and $170.8 million for New Haven.
Among smaller school districts in the Greater Hartford area, Lamont’s cost-sharing proposal calls for $124 million for New Britain, $25 million for West Hartford, $9.3 million for Rocky Hill, $8.2 million for Simsbury, $6.7 million for Glastonbury, $3.7 million for Farmington, and $1.27 million for Avon.
New Haven mayor Justin Elicker visited the state Capitol recently, saying that he would need to raise property taxes if the Elm City does not receive enough in state funding. Numerous educators say that the all-important cost-sharing grants are not enough at a time of rising costs.
The $28.7 billion all-funds budget for the next fiscal year represents an increase of 4.4% over the current year and would be $1.1 million below the state-mandated spending cap — a tiny fraction of the overall spending plan.
Home health care and nursing homes
In another move, Lamont is calling for ending an 11-year-old Medicaid program known as the Community First Choice State Plan Option because costs have more than quadrupled to $371 million in the last fiscal year from $88.8 million in the 2018 fiscal year.
Lamont’s budget office says the plan is to “move participants to either an existing home and community-based services waiver, which could be modified if needed, or to a new Medicaid waiver.”
But Sheldon Taubman, a longtime disability rights attorney, said the plan would impact about 7,250 severely disabled people.
“State officials have acknowledged they only intend to hold harmless people already on CFC,” Toubman said in written testimony to the appropriations committee. “People who newly suffer a spinal cord or brain injury, or newly develop a neurological condition, will be out of luck. They will wait years for a slot under a waiver or, much more likely, go into a nursing home.”
He added, “Under the governor’s proposal to eliminate CFC, each year, as new people with severe disabilities come forward who would have qualified for CFC, Connecticut will go further backward on “rebalancing,” in direct contravention of the state’s official long-term care plan for 2025-2028.”
Chris Collibee, the governor’s chief budget spokesman, said taking care of a relative at home can be difficult as they oversee the aides who arrive at the patient’s home.
“Some participants face real difficulties hiring and managing caregivers in what has become an increasingly complex program,” Collibee said. “Currently, these individuals have no alternative but to act as employers themselves to receive services, meaning they are responsible for hiring and, in some cases, the difficult process of dismissing a caregiver. To help better meet the needs of individuals, the governor has proposed allowing participants to access services through an agency-based employer model. This approach recognizes that not all participants wish to serve as employers, including managing HR related matters, and ensures they can still receive high-quality, person-centered care without the administrative burden.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat, said the final decisions on the budget will be made toward the end of the session in early May as Lamont and lawmakers trade priorities back and forth in detailed negotiations to reach the final compromise package. He said he had not yet seen the details of any changes in home health care.
“I heard there is a proposed cut … in home health services,” Looney said when asked by The Courant. “That was alarming to me. I obviously have to look into that. I haven’t had a chance to go into depth on that yet. But clearly, anything that affects social services that we have been struggling to build up since the years when we were running annual deficits and had to short-change everything, all of those would be of concern because we’ve been struggling to restore services that had been frozen for so long that, in effect, they lost ground to inflation.”
School breakfast
While magnet school funding would decrease by $12 million, Lamont’s proposal for universal free school breakfast for all public school students would cost the same amount — $12 million. The current program, which does not cover all students, currently costs $2.1 million, and that total would increase to $14.1 million under Lamont’s plan.
The plan calls for free breakfast for all public school students from kindergarten through 12th grade regardless of their ability to pay. This would cover about 500,000 students in all corners of the state.
In addition, any student who currently qualifies for reduced-price lunch would receive it for free under the proposal at a cost of an additional $523,000. That would cover about 13,000 additional students.
House Speaker Matt Ritter, a Hartford Democrat who will be a key player in the final budget negotiations in early May, spoke favorably after Lamont unveiled the plan.
Some lawmakers want to go even further so that all students could receive free lunch, as well as breakfast. That proposal will depend on the final negotiations before the legislature adjourns on May 6.
While noting that his breakfast plan has support from many families, Lamont added, “It didn’t pass last year when we proposed it.”
Based on last year’s results, advocates do not believe that the breakfast plan is a slam-dunk, and they are working hard in the Capitol hallways to get the idea across the finish line this year.
Rep. Gary Turco of Newington and Rep. Moira Rader of Guilford are pushing for the same idea as Lamont with 100 co-sponsors, compared to 60 co-sponsors last year. Nationwide, nine states offer free school breakfast, including New York, California, Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont.
Hospitals
The state’s hospitals, which have an extensive lobbying group at the state Capitol, have raised objections to Lamont’s budget regarding the tax that most hospitals pay. The tax represents a highly complicated maneuver in which the hospitals pay the levy but then receive money back through Medicaid payments as more federal money is generated.
“The tax program should be used to support patient care at hospitals. The governor’s proposal does not,” the Connecticut Hospital Association said in testimony last week to the appropriations committee. “The tax program should seek to maximize federal funding for Connecticut; the governor’s proposal leaves money on the table. Hospitals that receive tax-funded payments should pay taxes; the governor’s proposal does not require it. Hospitals that want to participate in the tax, like Connecticut Children’s, should be able to; the governor’s proposal prohibits it.”
The hospitals also say that Waterbury Hospital, which received approval recently to be purchased by the public UConn Health Center, “should fully participate in the program as a taxpaying hospital, maintaining its current status.”
Lamont’s new budget director, Joshua Wojcik, agrees with the hospitals that the provider tax would cost an additional $100 million in the first year, but he said the hospitals would receive $140 million back in supplemental payments under the complicated system for federal funding. As such, the hospitals would have a net gain of $40 million, he said.
Christopher Keating can be reached at [email protected]