Did higher education cost-sharing grants count against Connecticut’s 1993 spending cap?

Plain-English summary

In June 1993, Connecticut’s AG said the governor’s proposed increase in Education Cost Sharing grants for the 1993-94 fiscal year counted toward the statutory spending cap. The cap excluded certain expenditures to implement court orders only in the first year such spending was authorized. The AG rejected the proposed use of that exception for the school grants.

The Horton v. Meskill school-finance decisions had found an earlier funding scheme unconstitutional, but the courts left the remedy to the legislature. They had not ordered a particular amount of state aid or required use of the later ECS formula. That meant the increase was not an expenditure implementing a specific court order. The AG added a separate reason: even if the decisions had required spending, the state had responded years before 1993-94, so the increase could not qualify as a first-year court-order expenditure. The opinion concerned the cap calculation, not whether increased school aid was desirable.

State budget officials at the time

The opinion required the proposed ECS increase to be included when calculating authorized general budget expenditures for 1993-94.

Municipal school districts at the time

The AG did not treat the Horton litigation as a standing exemption for later school-grant increases. He said the litigation imposed no specific ECS payment order.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1993. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Q: Were extra ECS grants exempt from Connecticut’s 1993-94 spending cap?
A: No. The AG said the proposed increase counted as a general budget expenditure.

Q: Did the Horton court decisions order Connecticut to spend a fixed amount on schools?
A: The AG said they did not. The courts declared problems with the former financing system but did not command a specific state expenditure under ECS or its predecessor.

Q: How long did the court-order exception last under the cap statute?
A: The AG read it as applying only in the first fiscal year the responsive expenditure was authorized. The 1993-94 grants came too late for that exception even on the assumed premise of a spending order.

Background and statutory framework

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 2-33a capped growth in general budget expenditures and provided a first-year exception for implementing court orders. ECS grants were made under § 10-262h. The AG analyzed both Horton decisions and found no specific judicial spending command and no first-year basis for excluding the new appropriation.

Citations and references

Statutes: Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-262h; Conn. Gen. Stat. § 2-33a.

Cases: Horton v. Meskill, 172 Conn. 615 (1977); Horton v. Meskill, 195 Conn. 24 (1985).

Source

• Landing page: https://portal.ct.gov/AG/Opinions
• Opinion page: https://portal.ct.gov/ag/opinions/1993-formal-opinions/representative-thomas-d-ritter--legislative-office-building-room-4100--1993011-formal-opinion-attorn

Original opinion text

Representative Thomas D. Ritter , Legislative Office Building, Room 4100 , 1993-011 Formal Opinion, Attorney General of Connecticut

Attorney General's Opinion

Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal

June 8, 1993

Representative Thomas D. Ritter

Speaker of the House

Legislative Office Building, Room 4100

Hartford, CT 06106-1591

Dear Mr. Speaker:

By letter dated February 26, 1993 you have asked for our advice as to whether an increase in the amount of money appropriated to municipalities under the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant program (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-262h) which has been recommended by the governor for SFY 1993-94 is properly counted as a "general budget expenditure" for the purposes of determining whether the authorized expenditure limitation imposed by Conn. Gen. Stat. § 2-33a, commonly known as "the spending cap", will be exceeded. It is our opinion that any increase in the amount allocated to municipalities pursuant to the ECS must be considered a "general budget expenditure" for the purposes of determining whether the expenditures which may be authorized by the General Assembly for SFY 1993-94 fall within the limit on authorized expenditures contained in § 2-33a.

Section 2-33a imposes a limit on the amount by which the General Assembly may authorize an increase in state expenditures in any particular fiscal year. The "general budget expenditures" authorized by the General Assembly may not exceed the "general budget expenditures" for the previous year plus a statutorily prescribed amount which is keyed to the increase in personal income of state residents or to the rate of inflation, whichever is greater. Certain expenditures are excepted from the computation of the "general budget expenditures" by subsections (1) and (2) of § 2-33a. Among the items of expenditure which are not counted toward "general budget expenditures", and thereby not subject to the § 2-33a cap on authorized expenditures, are certain expenditures related to court orders. According to subsection (2) of § 2-33a "expenditures for the implementation of ... court orders shall not be considered general budget expenditures for the first fiscal year in which such expenditures are authorized, but shall be considered general budget expenditures for such year for the purposes of determining general budget expenditures for the ensuing fiscal year." Your specific question is whether the proposed increase in the amount of money to be appropriated to municipalities through the ECS grant program in SFY 1993-94 falls within this exception to the spending cap. This proposed increase in funding would not be exempt from the cap for two reasons.

First, the proposed increase in the appropriation for the 1993-94 ECS grant program does not fall within the "court order" exception because there is not now, nor has there ever been, a court order requiring specific expenditures under the ECS formula or its predecessor, the Guaranteed Tax Base (GTB) formula. In Horton v. Meskill, 172 Conn. 615 (1977), the court declared unconstitutional the then existing scheme for financing local public school districts. The court did not enter any specific orders against the state, however. To the contrary, "the trial court limited its judgments to declaratory ones"; Id. at 650; and the Supreme Court did the same, noting that "the judicial department properly stays its hand to give the legislative department opportunity to act." Id. at 651.

Subsequent to the decision in Horton I the legislature adopted the GTB formula to replace the unconstitutional statutory financing scheme. The constitutionality of the new formula was challenged in Horton v. Meskill, 195 Conn. 24 (1985)(Horton III). In this second challenge to the state's school financing formula the plaintiffs asked the court to order a specific level of state funding for local school districts, but the Supreme Court upheld the trial court's decision which had rejected that request:

The plaintiffs' sought to impose state funding of 50 percent of overall educational expenditures as the only constitutionally adequate response to educational disparities. The trial court carefully considered that proposal and correctly decided that assigning a fixed share of expenditures to the state did not provide a sound basis for assuring a proper distribution of responsibility or of funding for substantially equal educational opportunities.

Horton III, 195 Conn. at 40-41.

The Supreme Court went on to find that the GTB formula did, overall, pass constitutional muster.1 As in Horton I, the court in Horton III did not order any specific expenditures. There are no court orders arising out of the entire Horton v. Meskill litigation which would make expenditures authorized pursuant to the ECS grant program exempt from the spending cap.2

Even if Horton I or Horton III had resulted in a court order requiring specific expenditures, there is a second reason why the proposed increase in the ECS grant program in SFY 1993-94 would not be exempt from the spending cap. By its terms the exemption for expenditures relating to court orders is limited to expenditures in "the first fiscal year in which such expenditures are authorized." Conn. Gen. Stat. § 2-33a(2). It is clear that the legislature responded to the Horton v. Meskill decisions many years ago. SFY 1993-94 is not "the first fiscal year" in which expenditures responsive to the decisions in Horton v. Meskill have been authorized. Under the plain language of § 2-33a expenditures made necessary by court orders are only exempt from the spending cap for one year. Thereafter they are considered "general budget expenditures" for the purpose of measuring compliance with the spending cap.

We hope this advice is of assistance to you.

Very truly yours,

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL

ATTORNEY GENERAL

John R. Whelan

Assistant Attorney General

RB/JRW:ac

1 The Supreme Court remanded the matter to the trial court for further consideration of the constitutionality of certain amendments to the GTB formula. Legislation enacted since the Supreme Court's 1985 decision has rendered these questions moot.

2 The ECS grant formula is the successor to the GTB formula. 198 Conn. Pub. Act No. 88-358.