Governor Ned Lamont today held a press conference at the State Capitol to announce additional funding for special education that will not take effect for two more years. The governor is proposing that the excess cost grant, which subsidizes high-cost placements for students with the greatest needs, be increased by an additional $40 million for the 2026-27 school year.
“While we appreciate the attention the governor is giving to special education with today’s proposal, our students can’t afford to wait years for this crisis to be resolved,” CEA President Kate Dias said. “Teachers are disappointed that the governor’s proposal doesn’t address special education for this school year or the next. An additional $40 million toward districts’ special education costs in 2026-27 will help our schools but it falls far short of what is needed.”
For the 2023-24 school year, the state allocated $181 million for special education, far below the $261 million in costs districts incurred that were eligible for state reimbursement. This year the shortfall is even greater, and, due to inflation, costs will only continue to rise.
The governor’s proposal comes in the wake of a report released last week from the Task Force to Study Special Education Services and Funding, on which CEA Treasurer Stephanie Wanzer and Secretary Tara Flaherty served. The Task Force report made several significant recommendations for rethinking special education in Connecticut, including raising salaries for teachers and paraeducators, incorporating a weight for special education students into the state’s Education Cost Sharing formula, and reducing the threshold for state reimbursement of a district’s costs to educate a child from 4.5 times the per pupil expenditure to 3 times the per pupil expenditure for students receiving services within their home school district.
“Special education is in crisis today, yet we continue to push off remedies to truly tackle the problem,” Dias says. “Our students must have access to educators who can support them. If we aren’t paying educators a wage that allows them to support themselves and their families without taking on additional jobs and live in the communities where they work, they’re going to leave the profession. The governor’s proposal does not address our urgent need to attract and retain special education teachers.”
The state already has a shortage of more than 500 special education teachers while more and more continue to leave the profession. Young people and career changers are not choosing special education as a career when they see how overworked and underpaid teachers are.
“If we wait until the 2026-27 school year to take any measures to address the problem, who will be left to teach our students?” Dias asks.
The governor is also proposing that the legislature establish a grant program to increase school districts’ ability to provide special education programming in-district and regionally, reducing reliance on out-of-district placements. For fiscal year 2027, the governor is proposing to allocate $10 million from the General Fund and $4 million in bond funds to support it. This proposal echoes a recommendation from the Task Force, which called for a $20 million pilot program to provide incentive grants to districts for the operational costs of new programs and a 15% increase in state reimbursement for school construction to build needed facilities for such programs.
“As a state we need to take bold, immediate action,” Dias says. “We call on the governor and legislators to invest in the children and educators who are learning and teaching in our classrooms today.”
The governor will announce all of his funding priorities for the next two years during his annual budget address Wednesday, February 5, at noon. The governor’s budget proposal is the first volley in a months-long process by which the state arrives at its final budget for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. Legislators will soon be holding public hearings to get feedback from constituents and will fashion their own budget proposal.
Make sure legislators hear your opinions on how the state should address the special education crisis. The Connecticut General Assembly Special Education Committee is inviting all stakeholders to a Special Education Listening Tour to hear your thoughts specifically in the areas of funding, outplacement, and staffing.
Attend a forum February 4 in Norwich, February 6 in Winsted, February 11 in Bridgeport, or February 13 in Hartford.