The state’s main lobbying group for towns is urging Connecticut lawmakers to increase education funding to ease property tax burdens in communities.
In a report issued Tuesday the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities said the state is underfunding local education mandates by $763 million this year alone.
CCM is gearing up for the next session of Connecticut’s General Assembly, which begins early in 2013, where it will push lawmakers to increase state aid for education.
In a press conference yesterday at the state capitol, Jim Finley, CCM’s executive director, said the state has “chronically underfunded” education grants to towns for years, forcing local communities to increase property taxes to pay for schools.
CCM’s lobbying efforts this year will be twofold; It wants the state to back off some education mandates that are not being properly funded and it wants the state to increase education funding overall to towns.
"Municipalities across Connecticut have had to divert resources from non-education local public services in order to pay for the increasing costs of education because the state has not kept its funding bargain with school districts and with property taxpayers," the Stamford Advocate quotes Finley as saying.
Earlier this year, the lobbying group wanted the state to reassess its dependence on property taxes.
