Public-school grads raise hands at Tuesday’s forum.
J. Peter Wilson asked people in the crowd to raise their hands if they’d had a public education or sent their children to public schools. Hands went up throughout the room.
Then why, Wilson asked, is the governor siphoning money from traditional public schools for charter schools?
Wilson was among the speakers at a Tuesday night “town hall” meeting who asked Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to explain his priorities in planning the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, as Connecticut faces 5.75 percent cuts across all agencies.
People from across Greater New Haven pressed the governor at his third public forum this month to save their programs and avoid cuts that would target social services.
At the podium in Wilbur Cross High School’s atrium, the governor largely stuck to his message: The state has to work with less, and he is finding the right spending balance. The state needs to close a deficit estimated at about $500 million for the current fiscal year as well as projected deficits moving forward because of lower-than-expected tax revenues.
Before taking questions, Malloy explained the five principles guiding the changes in the proposed budget: Spend based on available resources, manage long-term pension obligations, specify core services, hold state agencies accountable for results, and seek a bipartisan process.
The Great Recession led to a drop in revenue and increase in low-paying jobs, meaning the legislature “will have to make major changes to the budget,” he said.
The proposed state budget gives charter schools a $9.3 million boost and cuts $52.9 million in special education, after school programs and other services in under-resourced public schools. It also eliminates an increase in Education Cost Sharing grants for neighborhood schools next school year.
A special education teacher in New Haven Public Schools’ central office, Wilson accused Malloy of favoring charter schools over traditional public schools.
“Why has there been a transformation of funds to charter schools as opposed to those funds remaining in public education to increase and continue our country being great?” he said. “You and I have had discussions about this before.”
Malloy stresses balance in the budget.
“Do you know charter schools are public schools?” Malloy responded. “Apparently he does not,” he said, indicating Wilson.
Malloy has embraced the charter school movement as governor.
The state began investing in charter schools because existing public schools “were failing our kids,” Malloy said. “The percentage of people who are failing to graduate with a degree went down for five years before I took over as governor … Ninety percent of Americans are educated in public schools, including charter schools, which are public schools.”
Wilson held out a hand and tilted it from side to side — to say, “sort of.”
“No, not this. They are,” Malloy insisted.
“They don’t do business the same way other schools do business,” Wilson said, to a smattering of claps.
Wilson: Malloy should stop favoring charter schools.
“That’s exactly the point,” Malloy said. He and Wilson spoke over each other, neither one ceding the floor.
“We fundamentally disagree,” Malloy said finally, after threatening to end the conversation with his challenger. “The kids living in urban environments deserve the same level of treatment that other people get.”
Getting back to the numbers, Malloy said New Haven’s traditional public schools had not lost any money as a result of charter school funding changes in the city. And charter schools receive less per pupil than traditional schools, he reminded the public.
Which governor has put the most money into funding public education? Malloy asked Wilson.
“You have,” Wilson said. But conflating charter schools and traditional schools is like “talking about apples and oranges,” he said. “They don’t mix.”
Rice: Raise taxes on billionaires.
This interaction was the most tense of the evening. Many speakers, while critical of cuts, also voiced their past support for Malloy’s policies.
Kimberly Rice, who lives in New Haven and works in Bridgeport, told the governor she had voted for him and urged at least 500 people to do the same during the election. Since then, she said, she has been concerned.
“You appear to be abandoning your policies and adopting an austerity budget,” she said. Rice urged him to raise taxes on the wealthy instead of “abandoning the people most in need” by cutting social services.
Malloy said he was not abandoning his principles and that he had raised taxes when first elected in 2011 upon inheriting a $3.6 billion deficit.
“Finding the right balance is very important,” he said, circling back to his message. The proposed budget does not cut schools’ Educational Cost Sharing grants, among other services.
“Billionaires are paying the lowest they’ve paid in history,” Rice said.
Malloy said that isn’t true in Connecticut, though it is true generally in the country. “We have raised taxes substantially,” he said, and argued that the state may be reaching a tipping point at which new taxes don’t produce new revenue.
The governor touted his record on ending chronic homelessness among the state’s veterans and keeping more young drug users out of the prison system. Navy veteran Sylvester Salcedo thanked the governor for his work at ending homelessness and asked him to end the War on Drugs at state level. He asked the governor to instead pursue a policy of “tolerance, empathy and acceptance.”
Malloy said his administration is focused on mental health care over criminalization of drug use, as well as decriminalizing marijuana and making medical marijuana available for more illnesses.