by Laura Glesby
When it comes to improving the school system, “it’s not always about more money,” said Gov. Ned Lamont. “Sometimes it’s about doing things that matter.”
He offered that message at a campaign Q-and-A with Greater Westville Indivisible on Monday afternoon.
Lamont, who is running for a third four-year term as governor, spoke to an audience of 45 packed inside the small theater at Lyric Hall.
The dialogue, moderated by Greater Westville Indivisible’s Nan Becker and East Rock Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith, centered around sharp, policy-specific questions submitted by Indivisible members.
During the portion of the conversation focused on school funding, Lamont made the case that more spending does not necessarily equate to higher-quality education.
“My feeling is, I can give more money to the status quo, but that’s sort of not where my head is,” he said.
“No offense to New Haven,” he added, “but you were one of the last school districts in the state to reopen schools after Covid. Kids paid a terrible price for that.”
Most attendees on Monday were members or collaborators with local chapters of Indivisible, the grassroots pro-democracy organization that formed after President Donald Trump’s first election in 2016.
A Democrat, Lamont is facing a primary challenge on Aug. 11 from Hamden State Rep. Josh Elliott and a general election opponent in Republican Greenwich State Sen. Ryan Fazio.
The Indivisible members questioned Lamont on one substantial difference between his campaign and Elliott’s — their competing philosophies on taxing the state’s wealthiest incomes.
Elliott has proposed eliminating property taxes and increasing income taxes on millionaires by 4 percent.
Lamont, meanwhile, has been hesitant to raise taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents.
“During the most recent debate, you said you’d consider a surcharge on the very wealthy when we need it,” said Smith. “When is that moment?”
Her question was met with quiet laughs from the audience.
Some people, responded Lamont, believe that “if we raise taxes on millionaires by 50 percent, we’ll get 50 percent more revenue. And that’s not the case.”
He argued that in the past, when Connecticut has raised income taxes on millionaires, “we got less money” — “that’s for a variety of reasons,” he said, “but fundamentally, some companies were leaving, some people were leaving, and we had a very slow growing economy.”
Lamont described his own approach as “making our tax system a lot more progressive” by lowering taxes on the middle class.
“Our economy is growing again,” he said, enabling the state to generate revenue for programs like a universal childcare endowment and set aside $500 million to mitigate the impacts of federal cuts under Trump.
“Make Sure The Money Goes In The Classroom”
Melinda Tuhus asks Lamont about his stance on a climate “superfund” bill penalizing fossil fuel companies; he replied that he intends to see how a similar law pans out in New York first.
Lamont then segued the conversation to New Haven’s public school system.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) is primarily funded through a mix of municipal and state funding. As school leaders scramble annually to close millions of dollars in deficits, they are contending with dilapidated buildings, programmatic cuts, and massive student-staff ratios (including for librarians, counselors, and psychologists).
City leaders and advocates have called on the state to provide more funding for the school system — and this year, the state provided an extra $22 million to the city following that advocacy.
In general, Lamont said, he is not inclined to provide further increased funding to NHPS in the future.
Smith asked him specifically about his thoughts on the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula — the calculation that the state uses to determine how much funding each school system receives from the state. The formula was set in 2013 with a baseline estimate that schools need $11,525 per student (a figure that the formula adjusts to account for low income students, districts with concentrated poverty, and multilingual learners). That amount has never been adjusted for inflation.
Lamont noted that the state has increased funding for schools during his tenure. He argued that “part of the answer is more money,” but “part of it is doing everything we can to work with the schools” and “make sure the money goes in the classroom.”
That might look like using the state’s leverage to “negotiate better deals” with private special education providers, who receive tuition from school districts to educate students who cannot be accommodated by the public school system.
This past April, Lamont established a Blue Ribbon Commission to re-examine how school funding works. He said on Monday that he expects the spiking costs of special education will be a focus for the commission — “but I’m gonna let them make the goal.”
How Can The State Enforce ICE Protections?
The concern most on the minds of question-submitters, according to Becker, was how Connecticut can push back against the surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity and deportations affecting the state.
Lamont faced a series of questions on Monday about how his stated commitment to immigrant rights will be implemented in practice.
Several questions referred to a bill that Lamont proposed and that the state legislature passed in the spring, updating Public Act No. 26-14. The updates prohibit law enforcement officials, including ICE officers, from arresting or detaining individuals on a “civil offense” (such as an immigration charge) within “protected areas,” such as schools and courthouses. The law also prohibits officers from wearing non-medical face coverings while on duty, among other provisions.
Eric Cruz Lopez, an organizing director for CT Students for a Dream, noted that the act establishes “hospitals” and “urgent care centers” as “protected areas,” but leaves out community-based clinics and other medical settings. “Would you commit in the coming legislative session to push for an expansion of protected areas?” he asked.
“I commit to working with you and see what else we should be doing,” said Lamont.
Becker also pressed Lamont on how the act will be enforced.
“What does that actually look like in practice?” she asked. “Who enforces that in real time?”
“What I hate about the question is that everybody’s asking me this question,” said Lamont. “You know what that means? There are a lot of people who are gonna say, ‘All things being equal, I won’t vote this November.’”
“That’s just what Donald Trump wants you to do. Scare you away,” he said.
“My job is to do everything to convince you, you’ll be able to vote. You’ll be able to vote safely. We’ll do whatever we can to keep bad guys away, make sure the good guys are there, to make sure you can vote safely,” he said.
After Smith asked for more details, Lamont said, “We’re gonna make sure everybody’s trained,” from police officers to mayors to registrars of voters.
Smith asked for a specific outline of what an election worker should do if they see an ICE agent interfering with a polling place.
“Again, we do whatever we can to de-escalate, mitigate the situation,” Lamont said. He pointed to the mechanisms established in the law for the state attorney general and/or inspector general to investigate violations after the fact.
“As a governor, I can’t just tell you our municipal police are gonna go in and arrest these people. It’s not easy to do, and they don’t really want to do that,” he said. “But I’m doing everything I can to keep them away.”
Cruz Lopez also told Lamont, “We know that when immigrants have legal representation, the chances that they get deported drop significantly” — yet that legal representation is expensive, and bond to get out of immigration detention has also become increasingly costly, he said. “So,” he asked, “would you commit to state funding to provide legal representation” for immigrants in ICE detention?
“I’m making sure, with anything we can, that these independent groups that can provide legal support have the resources they need in order to do this,” Lamont said.
Debrief: “He Did Not Answer”
Indivisible attendees reconvened in a circle afterwards to reflect on the event.
After Lamont departed for his next event, a dozen attendees remained behind in Lyric Hall to debrief with one another.
While a few wore campaign stickers expressing support for the governor, most who spoke up during the debrief said they were dissatisfied with his answers.
Smith criticized Lamont’s response to her question about the Education Cost Sharing formula. “I don’t think it was an incredibly cogent and clear, committed answer,” she said.
A need for more effective resource management doesn’t mean that there’s no need for additional funding, Smith said. “Both of those things can be true at the same time.”
Cruz Lopez said he felt that Lamont’s responses to his questions on immigrant rights were “a little non-committal.” As for the question about a legal defense fund for immigrants, “he skipped it” entirely.
“The question was here, and the answer —” Cruz-Lopez said, gesturing in a roundabout circle, “— was here.”
“I felt the same way!” said Janis Underwood, adding later that “he absolutely skirted the issue.”
“I thought it was excellent that you asked very, very specific questions, and he did not answer,” said Renée Perroncel, a member of Orange Indivisible.
Perroncel said she believes that the state can work with municipalities to do more to prevent ICE from entering protected areas. For instance, she said, municipal police officers could proactively request a judicial warrant from every ICE officer entering a courthouse.
Other members of the group expressed some skepticism.
One attendee noted that there may be a risk that “the federal government comes after” officers who challenge ICE agents.
“I don’t trust cops at all” as a mechanism for preventing ICE activity, said another attendee. Even so, she said of Lamont, “he needs to be tougher.”