On June 13, Hartford politicians and a member of the Hartford Education Blue Ribbon Commission gathered to talk about new funding going into the Hartford education system this upcoming year.
“These investments are really significant,” said Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam. “$6.4 million in new money for our schools, $2.8 million through (Education Cost Sharing grants), another $3.4 million through new Special Ed offset grant, will be paired with $4.5 million of new dollars that the city and the City Council put into our budget, so our schools have $10.7 million more than they had to operate with last year and that is really significant to our young people in the City of Hartford.”
This money will support, among other things, building a more robust special education framework in the City of Hartford. Currently, one-third of the district’s budget, including 78% of its transportation budget, goes towards sending students with special needs out-of-district, according to Arulampalam.
“(The) special ed bill is very significant. 5001 creates not just a framework for funding in this budget city, $6.4 million in this budget cycle, but it creates a framework for where we’re going to go from here,” Arulampalam said. “There’s a lot we can do to continue that work, to continue that effort down the road, but it creates the framework for building out an in-district special ed program.”
Behind the scenes, there will be some serious changes in Hartford to make their school system more efficient, he said. This includes consolidating schools—according to Arulampalam, the city does not need 11 high schools to serve the population. There are only 16,500 PreK-12 students in the Hartford Public School district.
“These bills taken together and this budget creates a strong and thriving school system,” according to Arulampalam.
City officials did not raise taxes this year.
“When I ran for legislature, one of the things that I mentioned was that no city in Connecticut can function without state support, and particularly Hartford,” said Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. “That wasn’t a knock against anybody, but I sat on the City Council for three years and I know how limited the resources are, and your only option is to raise property taxes on people that are already some of the poorest people in our state and in our region. And so, without state support, the city is not going to grow.”
This year, a combination of $1 million from the city and state funding, will also fund 800 summer jobs for kids in Hartford, according to Arulampalam.
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