For Ansonia and Derby, you asked us to compare each town’s Education Cost Sharing (ECS) factors, reimbursement rates for major state education grants, and priority school district status. You wanted to know why Ansonia receives more education funding from the state than Derby. You also asked for history and background on the ECS formula and the Horton v. Meskill decision.

This report deals with the questions concerning state education funding in Ansonia and Derby. In response to the other requests, we enclose OLR reports summarizing Horton v. Meskill (2001-R-0059) and the history of the ECS formula from 1991 through 2002 (2002-R-0589).

SUMMARY

The major reasons why Ansonia’s total education aid from the state was greater than Derby’s in FY 2003-04 are: (1) Ansonia receives a larger per-student ECS grant than Derby, (2) Ansonia is a priority school district and Derby is not, and (3) Derby receives a lower state reimbursement for certain educational expenses than Ansonia.

Ansonia’s higher relative ECS grant is produced mainly by two factors. The first is that Ansonia is less wealthy than Derby according to the way the ECS formula measures town wealth. The second major factor is that Derby’s grant is being held down by the ECS cap, while Ansonia’s is not.

Ansonia became a priority school district in FY 2003-04. The designation is based on the district’s higher ranking than Derby’s on several statutory measures of economic and educational need.

Finally, Derby’s higher wealth ranking produces lower reimbursements than Ansonia under state grants that subsidize local spending for adult education, school transportation and construction, and health services to children attending private schools.

ECS GRANTS

The difference in ECS grants for the two districts is largely attributable to Ansonia’s lower wealth ranking and the fact that in FY 2003-04, Derby was subject to the ECS cap and Ansonia was not. In FY 2003-04, Derby received about $1,000 less per student than Ansonia. Without the cap, Derby’s grant would have been about $400 more per student. The ECS cap, which currently limits annual percentage increases in ECS grants to a maximum of 6%, has been in effect at various levels for more than a decade. It is currently scheduled to expire on July 1, 2005.

The roughly $600-per-student difference between what Derby’s uncapped ECS grant would have been and Ansonia’s grant is largely due to Derby’s higher wealth ranking under the ECS formula. Derby ranks 134 out of the 169 towns in the state on the ECS town wealth measure, compared to Ansonia’s ranking of 155. The ECS measures wealth according to each town’s per capita grand list adjusted for income (adjusted equalized net grand list per capita or AENGLC). Because the ECS formula is designed to compensate for disparities in towns’ ability to raise money for education locally, towns ranked lower in wealth receive larger grants. This wealth-driven aid distribution is required by the state constitution as interpreted in the Connecticut Supreme Court’s ruling in Horton v. Meskill.

PRIORITY VS. TRANSITIONAL DISTRICT

Another major difference in the two towns’ state education aid is Ansonia’s status as a priority school district, a designation used to focus extra state education resources on low-income and educationally needy students. Derby is a transitional district. Although transitional districts receive some preference for state grants, priority districts are eligible for more state aid.

Three types of towns qualify as priority school districts: (1) the eight towns with the largest populations, based on the last census; (2) in the first year of each biennium, the 11 towns with the highest numbers of children on welfare plus the largest numbers of children scoring below the remedial level on the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT); and (3) in the first year of each biennium, the 11 towns that rank highest in the number of children on welfare divided by the “grant mastery percentage.”

The grant mastery percentage is the number of students in the district scoring below standard on CMT divided by the number taking the test.

In FY 2003-04, priority school districts were eligible for state priority school district (PSD) grants, noncompetitive early reading success grants, extended school hours grants, and accountability (summer school) grants.

A transitional school district is one that does not qualify as a priority district and ranks from one to 21, when towns are ranked in descending order, on either of two alternate measures of student educational and economic need. One is the number of children on welfare plus the district’s “mastery count,” which is the number of students in the district scoring below state standards on mastery tests divided by the number who take CMT, multiplied by the number of the district’s regular education students. The other is the ratio of students on welfare to all the district’s students plus the mastery percentage. Transitional districts receive an annual state grant of $250,000 and can apply on a competitive basis for a share of the early reading success grant appropriation, but they are not eligible for the grants targeted to priority districts.

REIMBURSEMENT GRANTS

The state provides four major grants to reimburse local school districts for particular types of education-related spending: adult education, school transportation, school construction projects, and health services provided to students at nonpublic schools in the towns. The law establishes the percentage reimbursement scales. All are different, but each town’s placement on the scale is determined according to its ECS wealth ranking. Because Derby is considered wealthier than Ansonia, it receives a lower reimbursement from each of the four grants.

EDUCATION GRANTS FOR ANSONIA AND DERBY

Table 1 below shows the major ECS formula factors for Ansonia and Derby, their reimbursement percentages for each of the four reimbursement grants, and the priority school grants Ansonia receives. All factors, reimbursement percentages, and grant amounts apply to FY 2003-04. To help in understanding the ECS formula factors listed in the table, we attach an OLR report that briefly describes the ECS formula (2000-R-1149). The State Department of Education’s ECS/MER Guide, which contains a detailed description of the formula and each of its factors, is available online.

Table 1: Major Education Grant Factors for Ansonia and Derby

FY 2003-04

Source: State Department of Education

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