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Try Private School Grants to Ease Public School Bulge
This piece appeared in the Hartford Courant on May 3, 2005.
May is almost here, which means that community newspapers across the state will soon be filled with letters from angry property tax payers, urging a rejection of local budgets because of the ever-soaring cost of municipal government.
In a special report on Connecticut’s 169 towns and cities, the state’s Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) found that the number of communities able to pass budgets by the beginning of the 2002-2003 fiscal year was “the fewest number since ACIR started tracking these figures.” Just under half of the budgets going to referendum were approved on the first vote; and this year, with many communities facing budget increases well in excess of inflation, we can expect an even higher rejection rate.
The reason for this growing voter discontent is no secret. Even in communities that benefit from education cost sharing (ECS), the largest percentage of the local budget goes to public education, where salary and benefit increases persistently outpace other areas of the economy. Add to this the fact that every year scores of communities bond hundreds of millions of dollars to build schools or expand existing facilities for the purpose of accommodating a relatively small increase in the student census.
Given that even the best-intentioned local school boards are ill-equipped to manage complex construction projects -- and that costs are needlessly compounded by highest prevailing wage laws -- hard pressed property tax payers reasonably want to know if there is a better way to cope with projected increases in student enrollment.
In fact, a feasible alternative does exist; one that would save money and improve education. Instead of issuing debt to finance the building of expensive new facilities, towns could simply renovate existing structures and offer grants or scholarships for private schooling to just that number of students by which their districts are over-enrolled. In even our state’s smallest municipalities, the net savings of such a policy can easily reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of a typical 20 year bond.
Consider the ill-fated project to add an addition to Joel Barlow High School in Region 9 (Redding and Easton), estimated originally at $28 million, but now coming in at over $43 million. According to an online calculator developed by the Yankee Institute for Public Policy in Hartford, had that region simply renovated the existing high school and given private school scholarships to less than ten percent of its projected census, the next savings to taxpayers over the initially estimated construction costs would have been $90 million dollars. As it stands now, the unfortunate property tax payers of Redding and Easton will have to come up with at least an extra $150 million over the next two decades -- this in a region with only 8,000 homes!
Limited grants for non-public schooling can not only avoid such extravagant expenditures, but also serve parents and children in many other ways: reducing enrollment in overcrowded schools, accommodating staff retirements, controlling school operating budgets, and allowing students with special needs, talents, or religious convictions to find a more fitting education.
Unlike more sweeping school choice proposals, such as universal vouchers or tax credits, grants that maintain a constant student census preserve the existing public school structure -- and its level of funding -- while at the same time introduce a modicum of healthy competition to the district. Indeed, the job of those charged with administering local public schools is made easier, because parents who make unreasonable demands or who object strenuously to the curriculum or who promote controversial social issues now have an out.
For taxpayers without school age children who object to the ever higher cost of public education and for parents who want modern, accountable schools, limited town grants for private education represent a reasonable compromise. Those who want to learn more about how their own communities could benefit can download the free Yankee Institute calculator from www.yankeeinstitute.org.
Taylor Robinson, a graduate of Trinity College, was an intern at the Yankee Institute.
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The Yankee Institute for Public Policy, Inc. is a nonpartisan educational and research organization founded more than two decades ago. Today, the Yankee Institute's mission is to "promote economic opportunity through lower taxes and new ideas for better government in Connecticut." The Yankee Institute for Public Policy, Inc. is classified by the IRS as a 501 (c) (3) public charity. Contributions are deductible to the extent allowed by law.
