Mayors and school superintendents from Connecticut’s largest cities gathered Monday morning in Hartford to tell the state legislature they need more funding to cover the rising cost of educating students. At a joint news conference, city leaders from New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury and Stamford said the state’s school districts need $545 million more in the coming year to serve students. That funding is distributed via the state’s “Education Cost Sharing” formula, which calculates per-pupil need based on various characteristics in each district — and it would come on top of approximately $2.36 billion the state currently distributes annually. Of the $545 million, nearly half would land in the state’s five largest school districts. The superintendents and mayors said that’s because their cities educate some of the largest numbers of high-need students across the state, which include students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, are multilingual learners, have a disability or are experiencing homelessness. “This is a cry to highlight the realities that exist today in our state, and particularly center around major cities,” New Haven Superintendent Madeline Negrón said. Negrón was joined Monday by fellow superintendents Leslie Torres-Rodriguez of Hartford, Royce Avery of Bridgeport, Darren Schwartz of Waterbury and Tamu Lucero of Stamford. Mayors Justin Elicker of New Haven, Arunan Arulampalam of Hartford, Joe Ganim of Bridgeport, Paul Pernerewski of Waterbury and Caroline Simmons of Stamford were also in attendance. Last year, Connecticut educated about 513,000 K-12 public school students. About 91,000 of those students attended schools in Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford or Waterbury. Of those students, 83% were considered high-need students. The $545 million estimate was drawn from an October report put out by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, which offered recommendations for reengaging students who have lost touch with the education system. Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said Monday afternoon that he had yet to see the funding request from the city mayors and superintendents. “I look forward to reviewing their proposal,” he said. “They tend to ask on the high end.” Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said it was too early in the budget negotiation process to know what specific dollars would be allocated for school districts. “We’re highlighting the need, and obviously there has to be a greater investment in everything from pre-K through higher ed,” Looney said. Looney added that there’s a lot of uncertainty, particularly with a new U.S. president taking office next week. President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened to cut federal spending on many programs. But Gov. Ned Lamont’s State of the State address last week included a pledge that the state budget would “continue to increase the ECS funding per the bipartisan plan.” The governor will present his proposed biennial budget early next month. At a separate news conference Monday, the governor said he plans to prioritize special education in his budget. “Municipal aid in general has gone up way above inflation over the last six years, but I’m going to sit down and talk to the mayors,” Lamont said. “Maybe they have some ideas, in addition to just more funding, how we can get a better handle on this and take care of the kids.” The municipal leaders also highlighted critical staffing shortages plaguing their respective districts. In Hartford, that looks like ratios of one social worker to 325 students, one school counselor to 500 middle school students and less than 10 engagement specialists throughout the entire district, Arulampalam said. New Haven has similar ratios, Elicker said, adding that one school psychologist serves nearly 600 students. In Waterbury, dozens of teaching vacancies have crippled their capacity for providing special education, with vacancies making up “more than 20% of the required workforce to support students with special needs,” Pernerewski said. Municipal leaders said that additional state funding could help with both recruiting and retention teachers and staff. “We’ve got great principals and great administrators and really good schools, … [but] what we lack are the resources to turn those schools into centers of excellence, where every child who walks through those doors can believe in a brighter future and can have equality of opportunity,” Arulampalam said. The five mayors and superintendents also pointed to their growing need for financial support to help aid special education costs, which usually takes up a large share of districts’ budgets. Connecticut’s largest cities educated about 19% of the state’s students who receive special education in 2023-24. Data shows that in Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven, between 20% and 30% of their budgets went toward special education expenditures in 2021-22, totaling between about $80 million up to $140 million. A majority of those expenditures were on tuition at private schools with programs designed for students with severe disabilities, but also include hiring specialized teachers, paraeducators and other support staff. “The students didn’t choose to be eligible for free and reduced lunch. The students didn’t choose to be homeless. The students didn’t choose to require special education services. As educators know, and as the lead educators in all of our cities, we embrace every single one of them, and we know that there is no denying that the concentration of need is greater in our five cities than the rest of the state,” Schwartz said. Special education and its associated costs has been coined one of the legislatures top priorities this year, with a popular proposal that would change to the way Connecticut pays for special education by adding a weight to the state’s ECS formula for districts that enroll higher numbers of students in special education programs. The proposed changes are similar to weighted funding that currently goes to districts with large populations of multilingual learners and students from low-income households. “High-need students go to school in every corner of our state every day and we all rely on state government to fund our schools,” a written joint-statement from the CT Association of Boards of Education and CT Association of Public School Superintendents said. “All of Connecticut’s 167 public school districts are counting on the governor and legislature to fully fund [education].” Stamford Mayor Simmons spoke for the group when she said Monday, “It’s pretty rare that you get five mayors and five superintendents to agree completely and unanimously on one single issue, but this is truly one of those issues that is so fundamental to the future of our cities and towns and our state.”