Senate Democratic Budget Plan Sending Towns $190 Million in Additional Funding for Local Education Heads to Senate Floor

HARTFORD — The Connecticut Senate has begun debate on Senate Bill 1, legislation delivering on the priorities of the Senate Democratic Caucus by adjusting the two-year budget for fiscal year 2026-2027, reducing pressure on local tax burdens by providing towns and cities with $190 million in additional education funding and a $100 million increase in town aid.

The budget is balanced, under the spending cap and includes $300 million for early child care and an additional $30 million in healthcare assistance for lower income families.

“For years, towns and cities across Connecticut have absorbed the growing cost of public education with insufficient state support, and that burden has landed squarely on local property taxpayers, Senate President Pro Tem. Martin M. Looney said. “Senate Bill 1 addresses that imbalance directly, directing substantial new resources to local boards of education and ensuring that every district receives an increase regardless of enrollment. Paired with $100 million in direct aid to municipalities, this budget gives Connecticut’s cities and towns the tools they need to serve their residents without reaching deeper into taxpayers’ pockets.”

“While Washington Republicans are busy exploding the federal deficit and slashing education funding, Connecticut is doing the exact opposite: sending $190 million more to our local schools and cutting taxes for families buying back-to-school supplies, Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff said. “This budget is balanced, under the spending cap, and puts money back in the pockets of working- and middle-class families who have been squeezed from every direction. Connecticut Democrats are delivering real relief, and the contrast with what’s happening in Washington could not be clearer.”

Senate Bill 1 responds directly to an urgent need articulated by municipal leaders from across Connecticut: the rising cost of educating the next generation has placed unsustainable pressure on municipal budgets and local taxpayers.

Through S.B. 1, the state is committing to use its resources to pick up part of that tab and reduce the need of towns and cities to raise local property taxes. The bill accomplishes that goal through the following provisions:

• $152 million for local boards of education, in the form of an additional Education Cost Sharing payment. The additional funding will be built into the ECS grant in FY 28, which begins on July 1, 2027.
• $20 million in additional funding to ensure that all school districts receive a minimum of a 4% increase in their ECS grant this year, regardless of student enrollment.
• $18 million in additional aid for magnet schools, the Open Choice program, charter schools, and vocational-technical schools.

The new budget also includes:

• $100 million for state grants to Connecticut cities and towns.
• A $30 million increase to the state’s HUSKY health care program on top of the $45 million already budgeted, resulting in a total $75 million increase. HUSKY Health provides comprehensive, no-cost or low-cost medical coverage to eligible low-income residents, children, seniors, and people with disabilities.
• A $300 million transfer of ‘volatile’ state revenue to the Early Childhood Endowment which helps families access child care, supports higher wages for educators, and improves child care facilities.

Senate Bill 1 also includes a new, $5 million tax cut on back-to-school supplies beginning on July 1 of this year. The new tax cut will save parents money on essentials like notebooks, pens, paper, lunchboxes.

The budget will also bolster Connecticut’s annual Sales Tax Holiday by increasing the exemption cap on clothing, footwear, and backpacks from $100 to $300.

Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney Announces He Will Not Seek Reelection in 2026

HARTFORD — Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) announced today that he will not seek reelection to the Connecticut State Senate in 2026, concluding a 46-year legislative career that began in 1981.

Senator Looney has represented the 11th Senate District, encompassing New Haven and parts of Hamden, since 1993, and has served in the Connecticut General Assembly since 1981. He is the longest-serving Senate President Pro Tempore (2015 to present) and, prior to that time, he was the longest-serving Senate Majority Leader (2003 to 2015) in Connecticut’s history.

Understanding the time limits of the end of session and true to his passion to ensure passage of meaningful legislation, a celebration of Senator Looney’s work will be held in late May, not during the final days of the 2026 General Assembly session.

Senator Looney released the following statement:

“Serving the people of Connecticut in the General Assembly for 46 years has been the great privilege of my public life, and it is not a privilege I have ever taken lightly. To this day, I still find it hard to believe that a child of Irish immigrant parents and growing up in the Fair Haven section of New Haven became the longest-serving Senate Majority Leader and Senate President in state history. In many ways, I grew up and grew old in the General Assembly. I was elected to the House unmarried and now leave with three amazing grandchildren. I entered the General Assembly before I began law school and went on to be engaged at a leadership level with every issue pending before the State Senate for the last 24 years. After all this time, I want to leave the General Assembly while more people are still encouraging me to stay than to leave. I believe that after many years in Senate leadership, the time has come for someone else to take the helm. I have the utmost confidence that the Senate Democratic caucus will continue to produce superb public policy under the leadership of Senator Bob Duff, who is primed and supremely ready for the challenge.

“No career of this length is sustained without the love, support, and sacrifice of those who are closest. My loving wife Ellen has been my partner, confidant, and source of comfort and strength through it all, and I am more grateful to her than I can adequately express in any statement. My son Michael and my grandchildren, Matthew, Anna, and Isabel, have reminded me, across all the years, sessions, and late nights this work demands, of what a commitment to public life means in all respects. They are my greatest joy. I am grateful to my colleagues in the General Assembly, past and present, and to Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff for his partnership and his friendship. I am grateful to our Chief of Staff Courtney Cullinan and former Chief of Staff Vinnie Mauro, whose dedication made our caucus’s work possible, and to the constituents of the 11th Senate District and, before that, the 96th House District, who have honored me with their trust across so many years.

“I was raised by New Deal Democratic immigrant parents and believe to my core that enlightened public policy can deliver positive transformation when government takes its obligations seriously. I have spent more than four decades in the Capitol, believing that government, when it is honest, purposeful, and willing to make hard choices, is a singularly powerful tool available to a democratic society for advancing human dignity. That belief has not wavered.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kevin Coughlin | kevin.coughlin@cga.ct.gov | 203-710-0193