STATEMENT BY MAYOR ELICKER ON BEING APPOINTED TO GOVERNOR LAMONT’S BLUE-RIBBON COMMISSION ON K-12 EDUCATION FUNDING AND ACCOUNTABILITY

[NEW HAVEN, CT] - On Monday afternoon, Governor Ned Lamont announced the members of the Governor's Blue-Ribbon Commission on K-12 Education Funding and Accountability, a group charged with delivering a top-to-bottom overhaul of how the state funds its public schools to reflect the current-day needs of municipalities and schools and the students they serve. Upon being appointed a member of the new blue-ribbon commission, Mayor Elicker released the following statement:

"New Haven has been leading the charge in urging our state leaders to fix the state's broken education funding formula so that it more accurately reflects the current learning needs of our students and more equitably funds our highest need students.

The state's annual base foundation amount of $11,525 per student in education funding has been stagnant since 2013. As we all know, the cost of everything else has risen dramatically over the past thirteen years and we need a new state education formula that recognizes these cost increases and keeps up with inflation moving forward.

For the last several legislative sessions, I've joined New Haven students, parents, educators and community members - alongside others from across the state - in making this case at the State Capitol. Locally, working with the New Haven Board of Alders, we've also put our money where our mouth is by increasing our local municipal contribution to New Haven Public Schools by over 65 percent over the last six years. It's long overdue for the state to provide a commensurate level of support for our students in New Haven and across Connecticut.

In the 2026 state legislative session, our voices were heard.

I want to thank New Haven's state delegation, Senate President Looney, Speaker Ritter and Governor Lamont for delivering for our schools and municipalities this past legislative session. We saw meaningful new proposals and real action from our state legislative leaders that resulted in millions of desperately needed funds for next school year. Now, we need a permanent, long-term fix to the state's education funding formula and I look forward to working with my fellow commissioners towards this shared goal.

We all want to educate, equip and empower our children and youth so they have the knowledge, habits and skills they need to connect them to higher education, good paying jobs and meaningful careers. It's time we have an updated state education funding formula that reflects that."

###

Press Contact:

Lenny Speiller | (203) 725-4249; [email protected]