On Tuesday, June 4, the Connecticut General Assembly adopted a biennial state budget for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, which was sent to Governor Ned Lamont for his signature. Included in the biennial budget are several changes to state education funding, including changes to funding levels for the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant, schools of choice, and other education grants.

In an effort to provide useful information for policymakers, educators, community leaders, and all individuals interested in how Connecticut funds its public schools, the Connecticut School Finance Project has prepared two documents that provide an overview of the state education funding and school finance changes contained in the biennial state budget adopted by the General Assembly.

Additionally, these documents compare the state education funding contained in the biennial state budget adopted by the General Assembly with funding in previous budget proposals released during the 2019 regular legislative session. These previous budget proposals are: 1) Governor Lamont’s biennial state budget proposal presented to the General Assembly on February 20, 2019, and 2) the biennial spending plan adopted by the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee on April 30, 2019.

The documents detailing this information are:

• An analysis featuring ECS estimates for each town for FYs 2020 and 2021 under the General Assembly’s adopted budget and the two previous budget proposals from the 2019 regular legislative session, along with a comparison of those estimates to ECS amounts for FY 2019. Also included is a table with changes to schools of choice line items and other major education grants for the adopted biennial budget and each previous budget proposal from the legislative session. *Please note all ECS town funding numbers are ESTIMATES and should not be used for official uses.*
• A table outlining how the ECS formula in the General Assembly's adopted biennial budget, along with the formulas contained in the two previous budget proposals from the 2019 regular legislative session, compares to the ECS formula that was passed in October 2017 and was first implemented in FY 2019.