As of Thursday, none of these threatened cuts have been implemented, but local leaders remain afraid that New Haven schools will face steep reductions in federal funding from the Trump administration, especially as the Trump administration attempts to dismantle the Department of Education. Meanwhile, even with federal funds intact, New Haven Public Schools have struggled to fund normal operations this school year.

“It’s quite ironic that the Trump administration says they want to give control over schools back to the states, except for the issues that Mr. Trump cares about,” Mayor Justin Elicker said. “They are, on the one hand, giving control of the schools back to the state, but on the other hand, micromanaging how our schools educate our children.”

The proposed cuts have already created a climate of uncertainty, according to Michael Morton, spokesperson for the School and State Finance Project, making planning difficult for school districts and hurting students. 

Minnesota and New York have refused to comply with the federal memo to dismantle DEI, but Connecticut officials have taken a different approach. 

On Tuesday, Connecticut Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker told superintendents that they have more time to respond to the memo than initially feared and that her office is still formulating a response, the Connecticut Post reported.

In 2020, Connecticut became the first state in the country to require all public high schools to offer an ethnic studies curriculum in Black and Latine history, with Asian American history added in fall 2025.

In his state of the state address in January, Governor Ned Lamont urged state legislators to let the Trump cuts play out over the coming months and “focus on what we can do to build on the progress we’ve made over the last six years.”

In recent weeks, Lamont has expressed a willingness to declare a fiscal emergency if the Trump administration cuts federal funding for Medicaid, allowing the state to bypass its fiscal guardrails. But Lamont’s response to potential cuts to federal funds for public schools remains unclear, Elicker said.

In a joint statement last month with the state senate president and house speaker, Lamont promised to protect “our most essential programs” from federal cuts.

“No state can restore every cut that comes from Washington or ignore the effects, especially on public health,” they wrote. “However, sound fiscal practices have positioned us better than most states in the nation. If this pattern of devastating cuts continues, we will be prepared to exercise emergency powers. Although we hope that Washington reverses course, we must plan for the inevitable or unpredictable.”

Also last month, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who has positioned himself as a vocal opponent of the Trump administration, joined a lawsuit from dozens of states to prevent the dismantling of the Department of Education. The Department administers millions of dollars in federal funds to NHPS each year and is responsible for civil rights oversight nationwide.

The rising tensions between the federal and state governments comes amid a long-simmering fight over state education funding at the state capitol, as state legislators hammer out a budget for the next two years. 

In March, Elicker traveled to Hartford with 75 New Haven Public Schools students to testify before the state Education Committee in favor of SB1511, which aims to address “disconnected youth” in the state by increasing the base amount the state spends per student each year.

The Trump cuts will only exacerbate existing inequalities in education funding in Connecticut, John Carlos Musser, a senior at Wilbur Cross High School, told the News.

The threatened Title 1 funds are critical for NHPS. According to Musser, for example, they were used to purchase all of the district’s Chromebook computers.

“Those cuts would be disastrous. Even with the funding that we’re currently getting with the federal government, we’re looking at cuts and deficits and not being able to meet the needs of our students,” said Leslie Blatteau ’97 GRD ’07, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers. “It would begin to accomplish what the Trump administration wants, which is our public schools to be starved out of existence.”

Blatteau said that if push comes to shove, she believes state leaders would protect the new ethnic studies curriculum and other programs targeted by the Trump administration. But proactive state action is necessary, Blatteau added. 

Elicker told the News that New Haven will likely sue the Trump administration once again if the cuts are carried out. He called on state leaders to also do their part by providing further support for the state’s public schools, regardless of changes in federal funding.

“What I would like to see is that state leadership make clear that our values are shared across the state, and that no matter what happens, no matter what decisions the Trump administration implements, we in Connecticut stand together, and will fight things together, and defend one another,” Elicker said.

In the 2023-24 school year, Connecticut public schools served more than half a million students.

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Now, that same program is in limbo as the Trump administration tries to cut funding to the Center for Civic Education, which runs the project in New England. 

“I have to teach facts and current events and what’s going on. But yes, students do express their opinions on what is happening. And yes, there is fear,” Grindrod said.

Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to dismantle the department she was appointed to lead. Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security announced in January that immigration raids were no longer prohibited in “sensitive locations” like schools. 

Across New Haven, the effects of Trump’s education policies are already being felt in the classroom, alaming educators, students and city leaders.

Mayor Justin Elicker said Trump’s approach to education is hypocritical.

“The Trump administration has this idea of putting the authority for education back to the states at the same time that he’s attempting to take away our authority to choose how our children in our public schools are educated,” Elicker said.

The dismantling of the Department of Education will result in less oversight and civil rights protection in public schools nationwide, Elicker added. 

John Carlos Musser, a senior at Wilbur Cross, is concerned that federal cuts will only widen long-standing inequalities between urban and suburban schools in Connecticut. He called on wealthy Connecticut residents to contribute more to urban schools.

“New Haven is under attack from the Trump administration, and we need more money to counter the massive blows that are going to be had,” he said.

Shortly after the presidential election in November, Stephen Staysniak, an English teacher at Metropolitan Business Academy, told the News he was confident his work would be protected, even if students in his class remained concerned about how the new administration might impact their families. Five months later, Staysniak feels the same.

“On a personal level, I find it extraordinarily disturbing, but I wouldn’t say that that’s had an impact on our school community and the conversations we’re having,” Staysniak said.

Staysniak praised student leaders for organizing to protect undocumented students, and expressed confidence in the district’s protocol for potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. 

State leaders, Staysniak emphasized, have only doubled down on their support for the ethnic studies and diversity programs targeted by the Trump administration. “I feel very protected in what I teach, both in my school, in my district, and in my state,” he said. 

At Wilbur Cross, Grindrod remains concerned about the dissonance between what he teaches his students and the reality of contemporary politics, as many of the norms included in the curriculum aren’t being followed by the federal administration, he said.

According to Grindrod, changes in federal policy have already caused uncertainty in New Haven schools, especially with the potential threat to Title One funds caused by Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.

“Things are so disruptive right now that it’s hard to even just plan like next week. I can’t even imagine what the people on Meadow Street are trying to do with planning a budget,” Grindrod said, referring to NHPS administration headquarters. 

New Haven depends on federal Title One grants for students in poverty to support its public schools. A cut to the Title One program could result in almost 700 teachers losing their jobs in the New Haven area alone, Staysniak — who also serves on the labor board of the New Haven Federation of Teachers — said. 

Last year, Staysniak told the News that he found the president’s promise to dismantle the Department of Education unfeasible. Now, he remains confident that key federal programs will remain intact, even if under different agencies, but is more concerned.

“It’s shocking to see it happen right in front of you,” he said.

New Haven Public Schools reported 3,437 employees in the 2023-2024 school year.

Elijah Hurewitz-Ravitch contributed reporting.

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Car after car on George Street blew their horns in support of the coalition of labor unions and immigrant rights groups marching to protest Trump administration policies. One driver waved a red scarf from their window as a show of solidarity. Another shouted “I love this” as she drove by. Students waved at the crowd from the windows of a passing school bus. 

“I want to protest the tyranny of one individual,” Jack Cardello, a teacher at The Sound School in City Point, told the News. 

Cardello had a simple message for President Trump: “Think about the kids. Think about the future.” 

After a few lively speeches and chants from students, community college professors and organizers, the march followed a police escort and the Hillhouse High School marching band down Church Street to the New Haven Green, where the marchers — now around 200 — gathered around the flagpole across from City Hall. 

At Gateway, Cynthia, an undocumented student at Wilbur Cross High School and organizer with CT Students for a Dream, addressed the crowd through an interpreter. 

“I ask you to join me in search for justice, equity and human rights,” she said. “We cannot continue living in fear. We cannot continue to be treated as if we were less than others. We are people.”

In recent months, fears around immigration enforcement in New Haven have often centered on schools. The Trump administration has already signaled that they will no longer exempt schools from immigration enforcement raids. 

The administration has also proposed eliminating the Department of Education, which provided around $24 million in grants to New Haven Public Schools in the last fiscal year alone, according to district spokesman Justin Harmon. 

Education funding has also been a focus of budget negotiations in Hartford. Last month, Governor Ned Lamont proposed adjustments to the state’s fiscal guardrails to support modest increases in education funding and historic investments in early childhood care, in his biennial budget address. 

NHPS administrators, local unions and activists in particular have emphasized the dire need for state funds to support basic special education services. 

While the governor’s budget provides an additional $50 million for special education in the state, none of these funds would be spent until the 2026-27 fiscal year. Advocates say funds are needed this school year. 

Last week, the state’s General Assembly passed $40 million in emergency funding for special education in this school year while the governor was out of the country. Lamont vetoed these provisions on Monday, a move he justified as critical to preserving the state’s fiscal guardrails.  

On Friday, Mayor Justin Elicker announced his budget proposal for the next fiscal year. The proposal included a $5 million increase for NHPS, but fell short of the $23.2 million requested by NHPS superintendent Madeline Negrón. 

On Tuesday morning, Lamont announced a compromise with state legislators to reinstate the emergency funds, using interest on federal pandemic aid to pay for them.

Hours later, protestors stood around the flagpole outside New Haven City Hall chanting “We win when we fight” and “No justice, no peace.” 

“We are here because we want to send a clear message to our leaders in Washington, D.C. that we will stand up and fight back to protect our kids and protect our schools,” Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, told the crowd. “They’re trying to give billionaires tax cuts while they decimate the Department of Education, and we’re not going to let it happen.” 

Ambar Santiago Rojas, a student at the Engineering and Science University Magnet School in West Haven and a member of the Semilla Collective, described the harmful effects of proposed cuts to the Department of Education. 

“The proposed federal education cuts would devastate students like me. They would gut special education programs, slash funding for low-income schools, take away resources from English learners, and make college even more unaffordable for working-class families such as mine. These cuts aren’t just numbers. They mean losing teachers, losing support, and losing opportunities that could change lives,” she said. 

Students in New Haven rely on public schools for food, education and safety, Santiago Rojas said. 

“This fight is not just about school budgets. It’s about who gets the change to succeed and who gets left behind,” she told the crowd. “When politicians attack our public schools, they are attacking us.” 

Ernest Pagan, an NHPS parent and the president of Carpenters Local Union 326, told the News that he has confidence in city and state leaders, but is deeply concerned about threats to education programs at the federal level. 

For Pagan, the march was a symbol of New Haven solidarity and commitment to supporting teachers. 

“This is a New Haven thing, this is what we do,” he said. “This is not a fight that we could win on our couches. We’ve got to come outside, and we’ve got to come to the streets.”

NHPS serves around 19,000 students in New Haven.

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At a City Hall press conference announcing the budget, Elicker said that the tumult surrounding federal funding — on which New Haven relies heavily — resulted in a budget proposal that is “primarily status quo.” With enormous federal cuts a legitimate possibility, the budget may need to be amended midyear, he added. 

Elicker’s proposed General Fund budget totals $703.7 million, a modest 2.6 percent increase from last year’s approved budget of $679.1 million. His budget proposal also includes a 2.3 percent increase in property taxes, which Elicker touted as “the lowest tax rate … in the past two decades” with the exception of the last two years.

“It’s a time of tremendous uncertainty,” Elicker said. “We’ve all felt that in the last month, there’s been a lot of chaos coming from Washington, D.C. In the city of New Haven, we’re proud to say that we’re charting a different course.”

Emphasizing fiscal caution and promised stability, the mayor explained how he hopes to successfully navigate uncertainty from Washington.

The proposed budget includes $62.6 million in Special Revenue Funds — funding beyond normal revenue, a large portion of which comes from the federal government.

New Haven relies on federal funds that are now in jeopardy to address long-standing challenges, such as the state of the New Haven Public Schools, Elicker said. 

His budget proposal includes $15 million in additional funding for NHPS facilities to help address a maintenance crisis in the school’s buildings. This brings the budget’s total spending on education to $213,263,784, an increase from $208,263,784 in the last fiscal year.

The New Haven Federation of Teachers — the union representing NHPS teachers — recently filed a complaint with Connecticut OSHA over allegedly unsafe conditions in NHPS schools.

“You name it, our buildings are struggling with it,” Elicker admitted after the press conference, mentioning HVAC issues and mold.

But the mayor was adamant that New Haven has “done [its] part,” and Connecticut “must do more.”

Elicker also emphasized his proposal’s increased investment in public safety, including full funding for the new police contract and support for the continued installation of security cameras across the city.

The proposed budget would also create 13 new city positions, including building inspectors to keep pace with “significant economic development activity,” parking enforcement personnel, and a new chief data officer.

These proposed positions are part of a larger initiative to modernize government in New Haven.

The city is eager to “use technology to our advantage,” Shannon McCue, New Haven’s new budget director, told the News.

The budget adoption process at City Hall lasts three months. In this time, the Board of Alders Finance Committee will hold workshops, deliberations and public hearings to amend and approve the mayor’s proposal. During last year’s negotiations, $1.3 million was whittled off Elicker’s proposed budget.

After the press conference, the mayor acknowledged a tension between New Haveners’ perception of the city government’s inefficiency and the reality that, as he put it, “things cost money.”

“Oftentimes, when I talk with residents, they say, ‘You should be doing this more, you should be doing that more.’ But they don’t always connect it with the fact that we have to pay for these things … We’re always trying to thread the needle to make sure that we’re not putting undue burden on residents with taxes, but also delivering on services,” Elicker told the News.

The mayor praised the city for having “five straight years of balanced budget,” improving bond ratings and building up rainy day reserves.

Elicker will hold two town halls on March 18 and 26 to discuss his budget proposal with residents.

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New Haven Police Department communications officer Christian Bruckhart said that a student at Cross apparently showed “what other students thought was a handgun.” Once rumors of the alleged weapon spread from students to staff, a staff member alerted a school resource officer who called the police around 12:50 p.m. Bruckhart said that the school was immediately placed in lockdown “out of an abundance of caution,” and that the student did not make any threats. 

“There was nothing to indicate that the student was going to hurt anyone,” Bruckhart said. 

Once the school was in lockdown, officers worked to identify the student in question. Reviewing surveillance footage, they learned that the student had left the school shortly after displaying the alleged handgun, though the police could not confirm if the weapon was real. After about two hours, the lockdown was lifted. 

Maya Harpaz-Levy, a junior at Wilbur Cross, was in a meeting with a counselor when the lockdown began. 

“We were stuck in a tiny room for two hours,” Harpaz-Levy wrote to the News. “People were very relieved to leave, and they were complaining about the lockdown. It didn’t really seem like students were concerned.”

According to a press release sent out by the NHPD on Wednesday night, detectives located the wanted student after a “brief canvass.” The student was found with a second student, who was in possession of a BB gun. Bruckhart told the News that the NHPD determined that the BB gun was the weapon that triggered the lockdown. BB guns shoot small, metallic pellets that can pierce the skin. At a high velocity, they can be lethal, but are less dangerous than firearms.

The two students were taken into custody. According to the NHPD press release, the student who “caused the lockdown” was charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds, threatening in the second degree and breach of peace in the second degree. The student found with the BB gun was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, interfering with an officer and breach of peace in the second degree.

“We are encouraging students and staff to attend school tomorrow because we believe it to be safe,” New Haven Public Schools spokesperson Justin Harmon wrote to the News on Wednesday afternoon.

Wilbur Cross High School is the largest comprehensive high school in the New Haven Public Schools, with over 1,700 students.

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Two weeks ago, legislators from the state’s Select Committee on Special Education convened for the third of four stops on their “listening tour” of Connecticut in a half-full ballroom at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport.

“Special education is not going to be so special if everyone is in it,” Joy Colon, a teacher in Stamford Public Schools and a member of the Trumbull Town Council, told legislators.

For nearly two hours, teachers, parents and administrators recalled similar circumstances in schools across Southwestern Connecticut, from Stamford to New Haven. A number teared up recounting their experiences trying to get their students the special education services they are guaranteed by federal law. Speaker after speaker touched on one of the most controversial aspects of Connecticut’s special education system: private, out-of-district special education facilities.

Districts in Connecticut spend millions of dollars each year to send special education students to 88 private special education schools in the state. According to Rep. Maryam Khan, around 75 percent of these out-of-district facilities are nonprofits, but the other 25 percent are for-profit entities, many of which are owned by private equity firms.

Analisa Robertson, a special education teacher in Stamford Public Schools, expressed her concerns about outplacements to legislators.

“Districts should be creating their own special ed academies, where we can have therapeutic environments and don’t have to pay such outrageous fees,” Robertson said.

Rising costs

New Haven Public Schools alone spends $30,106,429 annually to educate around 285 special education students in private special education facilities, according to NHPS Communications Director Justin Harmon. The district spends millions each year on transportation to these facilities alone.

According to Harmon, the cost of these out-of-district placements has increased in the last few years, as has the number of students who need them.

For many district leaders and policymakers, the reasons for these cost increases remain unclear. 

“The costs appear to us to be rising rapidly,” Harmon wrote to the News. “The number of students identified as having learning disabilities has increased over time. As to the price of special education services, this is a good question to ask one or more of the providers.”

Rep. Maryam Khan, a former special education teacher and Deputy Majority leader, expressed concern about the rising costs of out-of-district special education placements. This issue is affecting districts across the state, both rural and urban, she said.

Connecticut has long relied on private special education providers, although a number of states do not. The costs for both nonprofit and for-profit private special education placements have gone up significantly in recent years, Khan said.

There have been no legislative changes to staffing ratios which would explain the rising costs, Khan said. Any increased costs due to inflation would also affect public school staffing costs, but the state’s public schools have not registered such increases, she added.

“I don’t see a reasonable kind of explanation right now that could explain [those] costs,” Khan said. “I am hearing some of them say that they are struggling to make their budgets. So I just don’t understand what has happened there that has changed.”

In his biennial budget address earlier this month, Governor Ned Lamont called for $14 million in state grants to incentivize districts to invest in in-district special education programs. He also proposed capping the cost of out-of-district placement. These programs would not come into effect until the second year of the two-year budget cycle.

Although the governor was concerned about additional spending this fiscal year, on Wednesday, Senate President and New Haven Senator Martin Looney and Speaker of the House Matt Ritter announced a plan to direct $40 million in surplus from this fiscal year to reimburse districts for some of the costs of special education.

Despite ongoing disputes over spending, state action is needed urgently, the speakers in Bridgeport argued last Tuesday.

“We need more financial support from the state of Connecticut,” Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, told legislators.

She called on the state to revise the Education Cost Sharing formula to account for special education costs, expand state grants to cover special education costs and cap student-teacher ratios for special education students.

Blatteau emphasized the importance of increased state regulation of out-of-district special education schools.

“Tuition increases are skyrocketing, and we can’t keep up. And we’re very concerned about takeover by private equity firms,” Blatteau said. “Why are private corporations preying on vulnerable students and trying to make a profit? This is exactly why we need government to intervene.”

Regulation

According to Khan, the Connecticut State Department of Education does approve private special education facilities, but much of the onus for regulation and supervision rests on individual school districts.

“If you’re a large district, like New Haven or Hartford, and you have students going to 25 different providers … there’s no way that you can go and do site visits throughout the year,” she said. “The staffing that would be required of a local district to be able to do that is not there.”

State inspectors, she said, are few and far between, and special education advocates have expressed concern that their recommendations are not enforced.

“We visit each facility to learn about its program and infrastructure. We oversee the placement process for individual students. The Connecticut State Department of Education provides oversight and monitoring for special education programs; we work from their list of approved providers,” Harmon wrote the News on behalf of NHPS, an account seemingly counter to  Khan’s concerns. 

The state’s Taskforce to Study Special Education Services and Funding, of which Khan was a member, recommended in May that districts reinvest in new in-district programs.

Khan expressed confidence that the governor’s proposal would encourage in-district programs but agreed with advocates that additional support is necessary this year, not just the next.

Blatteau also expressed support for the governor’s efforts to encourage special education in students’ home districts.

At the Bridgeport meeting, however, some parents and teachers praised outplacement facilities as providers of critical educational services.

According to Tom Cosker, an advocate for Disability Rights CT, Connecticut has the highest rate of out-of-district placements for special education students, with more than 6 percent of special education students sent out of their districts.

Both for-profit and nonprofit out-placement facilities are a problem, but for-profit out-placement schools are particularly problematic, Cosker said. These schools focus too much on profit, not on student outcomes, he argued, often relying on staff that are not certified to provide special education services.

Cosker praised the governor’s proposals, but said they would fall short of meeting the needs in the state. He is also worried an increase in state reimbursements for special education costs could fuel further outplacements.

Disability Rights CT is a federally designated Protection and Advocacy Organization for people with disabilities in the state.

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“For many years, governors would stand at this dias for a budget address, often confronted with a recession,” Lamont began his speech. “Today, we’re much better prepared to manage the unexpected, within reason. Our proposed budget is our best effort to stay true to our Connecticut values while continuing to focus on affordability and opportunity for all.”

Since the adoption of constitutional spending limits in 2017, the state has gone from the brink of financial disaster to a model of fiscal responsibility, largely thanks to established “fiscal guardrails.” On Wednesday, Lamont, long a defender of the guardrails, proposed slight adjustments to allow around $300 million in additional spending in each of the next two years.

His budget included additional funds for special education and early childhood care, measures to lower health care costs and transportation projects, as well as significant changes to the state’s tax code. The proposed budget also comes with little increase in housing funds and cuts to some state services. 

Education 

Education spending was one of the most closely anticipated items in Lamont’s proposal and the first one he discussed in his address.

Lamont proposed an adjustment to the state’s volatility cap — one of the most restrictive of the fiscal guardrails — which would raise the amount the state can spend before devoting the rest to savings and paying down debts and liabilities. The volatility cap is currently based on the state’s relatively low revenue years before the guardrails were enacted in 2017.

The governor’s proposal would change how the cap is calculated, taking into account the years of economic growth that followed 2017. This would give the state more room to spend on education without violating the guardrails. Because of agreements with bond holders, however, the state legislature must approve this change by a three-fifths vote of both houses.

“I believe that we have earned the opportunity to rethink our volatility cap,” Lamont said.

In particular, the governor would like to see some of the surplus revenue now used to pay down pension liabilities — around $300 million each year — placed instead in a new “universal preschool endowment,” a trust fund for early childhood education. These funds would serve as a “down payment” on a universal public child care system in the state, Lamont said, with only 10 percent of funds spent each year.

After repeated calls for increases in special education funding from Connecticut school districts like the New Haven Public Schools, Lamont proposed an additional $40 million for the excess cost grant program, which partially reimburses districts for the special education services they are required to provide by federal law.

The governor also proposed the creation of $10 million in “high-quality special education incentives” grants to encourage in-district special education programs. NHPS alone currently spends around $28 million a year on out-of-district special education for New Haven students.

Additional funding would also support free school breakfasts and programs to combat chronic absenteeism. $5 million would go to tutoring programs for thousands of students.

In order to balance the budget for fiscal year 2026, none of these funds will become available until fiscal year 2027. Educators and administrators, however, say these funds are needed urgently.

“The crisis is now,” Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, told the News. “We need a much more urgent, much more robust investment from the governor.”

Around $50 million in additional special education funding in the fiscal year 2027 is not nearly enough, Mayor Justin Elicker told the News on Monday, when news of the governor’s proposal first trickled in.

“It is less than I had hoped,” Elicker said. “We need to see the state take a really strong, meaningful step forward. And while I’m appreciative that there is some additional funding in the governor’s budget, it is far from enough.”

Both Elicker and Blatteau cited a recent report from the state’s 119k Commission on “disconnected youth,” which called for $500 million in additional education funding. Both have called for the state to increase the “foundation amount” — the per-student allocation to school districts — in the state’s Education Cost Sharing program and include special education costs.

While Lamont’s budget does include an additional $86 million for ECS in 2026 and $78 million in 2027, these increases are already set by state law. The governor did not propose any changes to the ECS “foundation amount,” nor did the total investment in education in the budget come close to the $500 million Blatteau and Elicker pointed to.

In New Haven alone, Blatteau told the News, NHPS needs an additional $8 million just to fully staff special education programs. With around $50 million made available statewide for special education programs in fiscal year 2027, it seems unlikely that NHPS will receive that amount anytime soon.

“What we’re seeing are certainly improvements, but not the structural change that we really need in the state of Connecticut right now,” Blatteau said.

Health 

Lamont spent much of his speech detailing efforts to address rising health care costs in the state.

“We have the best health care in the world, if you can afford it,” he said. “Connecticut should be a leader, so let’s take the lead. Our budget includes some initiatives to provide quality, access and affordability.”

Governor Lamont’s proposal raised a policy issue long controversial in the state: Connecticut’s tax on hospitals. The governor’s budget would adjust the baseline for taxes on hospital revenues — currently set based on 2016 numbers — to be based on 2024 revenue.

The Office of Policy and Management predicted this would bring the state an additional $140 million in revenue.

The Connecticut Hospital Association immediately condemned the plan on X, calling the proposal “devastating to hospitals, their workforce, and their patients.”

Warning legislators that his proposals “may drive the lobbyists crazy,” Lamont urged them to cap hospital costs in the state and cap generic drug price increases at the rate of inflation to make hospital care and pharmaceuticals more affordable for Connecticut residents.

Lamont also announced an initiative to import lower-cost drugs from Canada, a program under threat by the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs on Canadian imports.

The governor did not shy away from addressing concerns over the new presidential administration’s cost-saving measures. The new Department of Government Efficiency, he said, has promised to cut Medicaid costs, but is likely simply to shift costs to the state.

“If all they do is cost you, DOGE is just a dodge which could cost our state hundreds of millions of dollars,” Lamont said. 

The proposed budget also calls for $70 million for Medicaid rate increases to encourage Connecticut doctors to treat low-income patients.

Lamont proposed ending licensing fees for nurses, teachers and other educators and health professionals, a proposal that met with widespread applause from legislators.

Rob Baril, president of SEIU 1199 New England, which represents public sector healthcare workers in Connecticut, welcomed the elimination of licensing fees, but echoed Blatteau’s call for structural changes. Baril had hoped to see wage increases for public health employees included. Members of his union filled the capitol’s public gallery for the governor’s address.

“What was notable was what I did not hear,” Baril told the News. “I did not hear that there was going to be funding increases that would allow for workers to have livable wages.”

Cuts and taxes 

At a time when Connecticut is rated the worst state in the country for renters, the budget proposal itself includes little additional funding for the Department of Housing. 

The governor did discuss a program to create 500 units of “supportive housing” across Connecticut for homeless residents, but the program will be funded with money won by the state in its suit against Purdue Pharma over the proliferation of opioid abuse.

One of the governor’s signature items in the proposed budget is an expansion of the state’s property tax credit which allows residents who own their homes to deduct property taxes from their state income tax. 

The proposed changes would benefit around 800,000 taxpayers, increasing the maximum tax credit from $300 to $350. This would cost the state around $85 million each year. New Haven’s renters —  around 70 percent of the city’s residents — would not be eligible. 

The governor also proposed small changes to the state’s corporate tax which would result in more than $133 million in additional revenue in fiscal year 2026 and $83 million in 2027. 

The budget included additional incentives for in-state manufacturing and in-state hiring. The governor set forth a $1.8 million proposal to increase the percentage of research and development tax credits that bioscience firms can reimburse with the state from 65 percent to 90 percent.

Particularly notable for New Haven residents was a proposed increase in CT Rail and Metro North fares, as well as CT bus fares. These price increases were coupled with tens of millions of dollars in additional investments in rail and buses in the state.

The governor’s proposed spending increases, achieved through small changes to the fiscal guardrails, will also require cuts in certain departments. For example, the Governor’s proposal would eliminate free text and email service for inmates in the Department of Corrections and lower the income threshold for a state-provided attorney in the state’s courts.

Ned Lamont was first elected governor in 2018.

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“The situation for our special education teachers and related service staffing is a situation that is very, very dire,” Typhanie Jackson, executive director of student services at NHPS, said.

As of November 2024, NHPS serves over 3,000 special education students, Jackson told the committee. Of these, around 300 are in out-of-district facilities, around 200 in charter schools and over 550 identified special education multilingual students. 

And in recent years, NHPS has seen an increase in the number of students with learning disabilities and autism enrolling in the district’s schools, Jackson said. This school year alone, nearly 30 new students with complex needs requiring specialized programs have been identified, she added.

To properly serve its special needs students, the school district would require almost $8 million in additional funding each year, according to a staffing analysis conducted by NHPS that used data from other states and school districts. NHPS already relies on part-time contractors for much of its special education programming, lacking the funds to hire full-time staff, Jackson said. 

The district also spends around $24 million each year on “out-of-district placements” for students who require additional support that NHPS cannot provide in house, as well as approximately $4 million for transportation for these students. These costs are exacerbated by private equity firms’ ownership of many out-of-district special education facilities, Jackson explained. 

The district is hoping to expand in-district options to save money in the near future, Jackson said. 

NHPS special education programs are supported by around $7 million in federal funding through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, though a majority of its funding comes from the district’s annual allocations of the state’s Education Cost Sharing program and the Board of Alders. The state also specifically offsets a portion of the district’s special education costs.

Costs are exacerbated by individualized special education programming. Once the district identifies a student in need of special education, NHPS must design an Individualized Education Program for the student. NHPS is required by federal law to provide the educational services outlined in the student’s IEP.

Half a dozen NHPS special education teachers and parents testified to the committee about their struggles with understaffing and special education services in New Haven schools.

Patrick Foley, a parent of a special education student in NHPS, described the “frustrating process” of trying to get his 9-year-old son the services he needs. Obtaining a diagnosis and developing an IEP, he said, was “lengthy, difficult and significantly delayed.” 

His son has had to rely on outside tutoring, Foley said, because the implementation of his son’s IEP by NHPS has been “at best inconsistent and unsupported.” He called on the district to implement “clear, practical” standards for its special education programming. 

Asked by Alder Sarah Miller whether the district was able to fulfil all IEPs given current understaffing, Jackson acknowledged gaps in NHPS service, but insisted the district was still fulfilling its legal requirements.

“I wouldn’t say no, that the IEPs are not being met,” Jackson said. “I definitely know that there are some places where we have had some gaps.” In particular, she added, NHPS has had to rely on assistance from retired special education professionals to fulfill its obligations.

All eyes on Hartford

New Haven officials look to Hartford to alleviate special education funding shortages. 

“Everybody should save your testimony for when we’re in Hartford. We need to repurpose it,” Miller told members of the public after their testimony, urging them to also testify at the state capitol this session.

Jackson sits on the state’s special education task force which was tasked with proposing changes to special education programs in the new legislative session. Among the policies up for review is the Education Cost Sharing formula which redistributes tax revenue to support urban schools. Right now, the ECS does not take into account special education costs, NHPS Superintendent Madeline Negrón told the committee. 

In an interview with the News last week, Mayor Justin Elicker called for the state to loosen its fiscal guardrails to support urban public schools in the state. Funds would go directly to hiring more staff, he said, positions especially needed for special education programs.

The final report of the state’s Task Force to Study Special Education Services and Funding was released on Jan. 15.

“Special education in Connecticut schools is currently being undermined by a severe staff shortage,” the report concluded. “In many cases, needed services, mandated under a student’s IEP, cannot be appropriately delivered due to lack of staff.”

A state program that reimburses districts for some of the excess costs incurred by special education programs is inadequate to address student needs, the report added. 

Additionally, federal programs designed to cover 40 percent of special education costs, currently cover only about 4 percent of special education costs in the state, according to the report. 

The report recommended changing the ECS formula to take special education costs into account and expanding the coverage of the excess cost grant funding program. The taskforce also recommended the state dedicate funds to support in-district special education programs, reducing the need for out-of-district facilities. 

“The Task Force is clear that the time is ripe for Connecticut to make a renewed and strengthened commitment to public education, and especially to students with disabilities,” the report concludes. 

Earlier this month, the leaders of both houses of the Connecticut General Assembly held a rare joint press conference where they declared education a top priority for the 2025 legislative session.

The first bill of the session — Senate Bill 1 — will address the state’s dire education funding needs, Senate President and New Haven Senator Martin Looney announced at the press conference. 

“We all know that we need to do all that we can to increase resources for our entire education system,” Looney said.

Looney echoed the cities’ call for an increase in the state’s contribution to the Education Cost Sharing program and emphasized the need to address disparities in special education funding.

Meanwhile, staffing needs in NHPS special education programs remain urgent. 

“Quite honestly, if we can’t get staffing levels to the point of comparing to our neighboring towns … it becomes that much more difficult for those folks who do remain here in New Haven,” Jackson told the Board of Alders committee. “The reason why we’re able to make it work now is because we have very dedicated staff who are truly committed to our kids.”

The Board of Alders Education Committee meets on the fourth Wednesday of every month at 6:00 p.m. at New Haven City Hall.

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“We’re here today because corporate landlords and corporate interests have dictated what laws get passed in this legislature since the state was founded,” Hannah Srajer, president of the CT Tenants Union, said. “We refuse to live lives of mass displacement for the rich man’s bottom line.” 

The proposed legislation, which failed last session due to pushback from landlords, would expand protections against arbitrary eviction to all renters in the state. Currently, only disabled renters and those over 62 receive such protections, known as just cause. 

Earlier this month, the leaders of both chambers announced a renewed push for affordable housing in the state at a rare joint press conference, but just cause legislation faces an uphill battle due to lobbying from landlords.

Rep. Antonio Felipe and Sen. Martha Marx, co-chairs of the General Assembly’s Housing Committee, spoke alongside advocates in favor of the proposal.

“Housing is a human right,” Felipe said, citing recent data that shows a 13 percent increase in homelessness alongside large increases in rent. “You cannot tell me that these two things are not related … Wages haven’t kept up, and eviction protections aren’t there.”

Srajer cited a 2024 report from Consumer Affairs which concluded that Connecticut is the worst state in the country for renters due to its low housing stock and high unemployment. 

“The worst state for renters in this country is the result of a series of choices, and not ones that we in this room have made,” she told the crowd. “Corporate landlords are evicting thousands of families with nowhere to go. Whole communities and neighborhoods are vanishing in 30 days. And what’s the reason? Greed.”

According to Sarah White, an attorney with the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, landlords can currently ask tenants to move out at the end of their leases, regardless of whether they have violated any terms of the lease or not, in what is often called a no-fault eviction.

White said tenants are often intimidated by the prospect of no-fault evictions, which keeps them from requesting repairs due to fear of being asked to move out.

The prevalence of no-fault evictions leads to instability and insecurity for families, children, senior citizens and young people, Srajer said. Landlords maintain they should have the right to evict those living in their properties.

Felipe addressed fears from landlords about the implications of just cause legislation for their businesses.

“This is not going to be the end of the world for our landlords. We’re not saying you can’t operate in the state of Connecticut, and we’re not saying you can’t raise your rents in a reasonable way,” he told the crowd. “You have to deal in a fair and equitable way, and that’s what we’re asking.”

For renters from rural Woodstock to urban Bridgeport who also addressed the press, eviction notices threatened to undermine their economic stability and social connections. Solange Jesus and Rosemarie Rodriguez, immigrant mothers and members of Make the Road CT, addressed the crowd in Spanish, describing the fear caused by no-fault eviction.

Evictions disproportionately impact tenants of color in Connecticut.

Ward 7 Alder Eli Sabin ’22 LAW ’26 drove up to Hartford from New Haven for the just cause campaign launch on behalf of Connecticut Voices for Children, where he serves as the legislative coordinator.

“Right now, the balance of power between landlords and tenants is just out of whack, and we need to shift things back in favor of tenants to make sure people have rights to advocate for themselves, to stand up for themselves,” Sabin said.

In New Haven, where the majority of residents are renters, Sabin explained, having just cause legislation would be key to ensuring the well-being of local citizens.

Rep. Laurie Sweet, the newly elected state representative from Hamden, is optimistic and confident that just cause will pass, despite strong opposition from landlords in the previous session. 

Sweet, who advocated for just cause legislation as a private citizen in the last session, said the movement is a “very well-oiled machine.” 

“We’re going to be here every single day until June, if we have to, because when Connecticut Tenant Union shows up, we fight until the job is done,” Srajer concluded. “A no vote against just cause is a vote against the working people of this state.”

In 2022, New Haven became the first city in Connecticut to officially recognize tenants unions.

Correction, Jan. 27: The previous version of the article misspelled Hannah Srajer’s last name.

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The state’s fiscal guardrails are rooted in an eight-year effort to rectify decades of fiscal mismanagement. But the state is not the only government attempting to alleviate debts of the past.

New Haven has faced similar concerns over fiscal mismanagement, and to address them, Mayor Justin Elicker has favored similar spending and borrowing limits. In addition to bringing greater financial stability to New Haven, according to Elicker, this fiscal caution accompanies a significant increase in the city’s contribution to New Haven Public Schools.

It’s time for the state, Elicker says, to champion New Haven’s strategy. Connecticut must increase education funding while continuing to save.

“The mayors are trying to balance the same thing the governor’s trying to balance,” Elicker said at the press conference in the state capitol. “All of us have pension liabilities that are significantly high. All of us have debt service payments because of borrowing over the years that is high … And us determining what is the right dollar amount to address the long-term liabilities that we have and what is the right dollar amount to ensure that we don’t create more liabilities…are hard questions.”

The News spoke to experts, policy-makers and advocates who say the financial decisions facing the state and city today pose a fundamental question: how to address decades of fiscal negligence while supporting the immediate needs of residents.

Why guardrails?

Connecticut’s fiscal guardrails date back to 2017. Designed to reverse over a century of underfunded pension liabilities and excessive borrowing, they limit the amount of money that the state can borrow. They also require state leaders to dedicate revenue above a set amount to the state’s rainy day fund, pension liabilities and bonded debt.

According to David Schleicher, an expert on municipal finance at Yale Law School, these changes have made Connecticut, once a state on the verge of fiscal crisis, a model of financial recovery in less than eight years — a shift “more dramatic” than any other state.

“It has gone from being one of our classic examples of a fiscal basket case to one of our most fiscally conservative states in the last couple of years,” Schleicher said.

For nearly 50 years, Connecticut has failed to save enough for its pension obligations to public employees — including all of the state’s public school teachers — and maintains the highest rates of bonded debt per capita in the nation.

Connecticut is 46th in the nation in terms of state pension plan funding levels, with only 63.5 percent of pension liabilities funded. In the long run, Connecticut does not have enough money saved to cover all of its pension obligations.

“We were on a pay-as-you-go kind of option,” said Lisa Hammersley, executive director of the School + State Finance Project, a nonprofit lobbying group focused on education funding in Connecticut. “We’re making up for all of those payments that we didn’t make previously.”

Hammersley added that the state has established a payment plan for pension obligations and should be able to slowly pay off its debts and liabilities in the next few years.

Since 2017, Connecticut has used historic budget surpluses to pay down substantial amounts of these debts and liabilities. According to Schleicher, the state has now filled its rainy-day fund and is directing millions of dollars in surplus revenue to unpaid pension liabilities.

But as the state diverts funds from spending bills, Connecticut’s failure to use budget surpluses to support funding for public school students has frustrated many local leaders. 

Elicker’s position

The debate over fiscal guardrails has pitted the mayors of Connecticut’s cities against state leaders, Lamont in particular. One irony of this fight is that cities like New Haven face a similar dilemma, pay for services or pay off debt, an irony that Elicker readily acknowledges.

“New Haven is very much in the same place,” he said. “As a mayor, I struggle with the same question in New Haven. What is the right balance between our ability to provide services which offer residents opportunity and keep New Haven an affordable city while continuing to address significant pension liabilities.” 

Elicker criticized the state for cutting taxes without increasing funds for public education — at a time where a dearth of funding for public schools has led to crumbling facilities and stretched services in cities like New Haven.

This, in turn, has forced municipalities like New Haven to raise property taxes to fund urban public schools. Connecticut already has some of the highest property taxes in the country.

“The state is effectively raising taxes, but mayors are taking the responsibility,” Elicker told the News.

Elicker also argued that failing to increase funds for public education would cost the state millions in the long run with even larger numbers of “disconnected youth,” a poorer tax base and more demand for social services.

The state, Elicker said, is now in a “good position” to address education needs, thanks to the fiscal guardrails. Additional funds would go directly to hiring new staff in New Haven Public Schools, where each counselor and psychologist now serves hundreds of students.

Loosening spending limits to support education “is the financially correct choice for the state,” he concluded.

In particular, Elicker favors changing the formula for the state’s volatility cap, one of the most widely discussed changes to spending limits. 

The volatility cap requires the state to save any revenue above a set amount or dedicate it to paying off financial liabilities. According to Schleicher, the current cap was set based on the two low-revenue years before 2017. A weighted average of the last few years of budget surpluses would allow for greater spending.

For Schleicher, this change, however, raises two concerns. Raising the volatility cap would reduce the amount of money the state saves each year and dedicates to paying down enormous debt and pension liabilities. Some also fear that changes to the volatility cap might open the door for larger violations of the fiscal guardrails, a fear that might make it more difficult for the state to borrow money from wary investors, he said.

Pension liabilities in particular pose a real political challenge to state and local leaders, Schleicher added. When the state pays down pension liabilities, today’s taxpayers are essentially paying for the services of the past — policing, schooling and firefighting, for example — through pensions for retired employees.

“The real political question for Connecticut is how much pain to suffer now for the sins of the past,” Schleicher said. “We’re still just paying for the long-running fiscal irresponsibility of Connecticut and will be for a long time, regardless of what happens. The question is just: how much?”

The 2025 Connecticut legislative session began Jan. 8 and will conclude June 4.

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