Officials: New ECS Plan Continues to Shortchange Farmington

The Farmington Board of Education often compares its funding to that of other towns during budget season. Farmington ranks among the lower third of towns in the state in per-pupil, school-based administration and transportation costs. But there's another ranking that Farmington's not happy about — the amount of state funding it gets through the Education Cost Sharing grant.

ECS money, given directly to the town, is intended to be divided among districts according to need to offset the cost of education to the town. Gov. Dannel Malloy announced recently that the ECS grants would be a major part of his education reform plan. 

The result is more money for 130 of Connecticut's school districts, including many of Farmington's neighbors. But Farmington allocation would remain flat at $1,611,013. 

Malloy plans to put an additional $50 million into ECS funding. Of that, nearly $40 million would go to the Alliance Districts, made up of the 30 lowest-performing school districts, and $4.5 million in competitive funding will be offered to all districts. Alliance districts would be given preference.

The formula for ECS, the state’s largest education grant, has long been an issue of contention between districts and the state. In August 2011, Malloy commissioned a task force to review the ECS formula. The commission submitted an interim report in January with recommendations including revising the formula based on up-to-date poverty and foundation data, providing predictable year-to-year funding and fairly funding Choice programs, among others. 

In the past 15 years, more than 40 changes have been made to the formula, Sen. Beth Bye said during a visit to the Town Council on Monday.

She agreed that the way the money is allocated is no longer fair.

“It doesn’t make sense because it’s been political for a long time. I’m very hopeful changes will be made to correct it,” she said.

In a recent budget workshop, Board of Education Chairman Mary Grace Reed had strong words for the state.

"ECS is unfair at best ... When you look at ECS grants to the town of Simsbury compared to the town of Farmington, you have to ask are they asleep at the switch? Our children and taxpayers are suffering as a result of it, Reed said. "I cannot say enough what a disservice the state is continuing to do to our community."

Canton would see $72,284 new dollars; Granby which receives $5,394,276 currently, would see an increase of $83,357; Glastonbury, which gets over $6 million now, would see an additional $213,879 and Simsbury, which gets $5,513,204, would receive $145,687 more. 

"Unfortunately, with the way the grant is configured right now, the grand list hurts us in the cacluation of the grant, so that’s a big factor in why we didn’t receive any money and why we’re stuck on $1.6 million," said Farmington Board of Education Business Administrator Mike Ryan.