top of page

Eye on Hartford: A Talk with State Senator Gordon



State Senator Jeff Gordon
State Senator Jeff Gordon

On Wednesday, Governor Ned Lamont will reveal his budget, and legislators, responding to constituent concerns, are seeking more funding for key programs, many of which directly impact towns like Stafford. As CTMirror puts it, “Simply put, Lamont is beset on all sides, facing far more pressures and demands than the 'guardrails' will accommodate.” Once the governor announces the budget, the Appropriations Committee gets to work.


Many issues of the most significant concern to Stafford’s leaders have been up for debate before. In anticipation of this year’s budget, I chatted with State Senator Jeff Gordon (R-Woodstock), also a member of the Appropriations Committee, about the issues at stake and what’s happening at the capitol. 


Education costs

In December, Stafford's Interim Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Laura Norbut, froze the school budget after revealing an expected budget deficit at the end of the year. The most recent numbers made public put the projected deficit at more than $490,000. One of the main drivers of this is increases in special education costs. Meanwhile, the situation with excess cost reimbursements from the state has gone from bad to worse. 


The state is supposed to reimburse towns for any special education costs that are more than 4.5 times the average per pupil cost. Stafford is supposed to have 91% of those excess costs reimbursed, but because the state underfunds the program, Stafford has typically only received a 72% reimbursement (or somewhere thereabouts). This year, Dr. Norbut says Stafford has heard it will likely only receive reimbursement for about 64% of its excess costs. In other words, the state fails to deliver on its promises, and Stafford’s school budget is paying the price. 


In January, CTMirror reported on a press conference where “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.”


On Tuesday, the governor said he would increase special education funding by $40 million in 2027. The response, however, was tepid at best as key figures noted that it simply is not enough


Senator Gordon says there is growing bipartisan support for reworking the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) formula. He adds, “We don’t need to raise taxes to fund education better.” The money is already there, according to Gordon, and changing the formulas would allow the state to issue more realistic numbers regarding reimbursement rates, letting towns plan accordingly. 


“The state doesn’t live up to its legal obligation to fund public education,” says Gordon. He says he wants to see education funding treated as a fixed cost within the state budget. 


In addition to the issues surrounding funding special education, schools are now required to inspect the HVAC systems in schools every five years. And, of course, those inspections could lead to required upgrades or maintenance. While a grant program is designed to help schools with upgrades, municipalities have to provide matching funds


Medicaid reimbursement

Ambulance services are integral to a functioning town. However, they can also be expensive. That is true in Stafford, where the ambulance budget has been a concern for First Selectman Bill Morrison – and where Medicaid and Medicare patients make up a significant portion of ambulance revenue. CT Mirror reported that a “study analyzed Medicaid reimbursement rates for more than 11,000 physician specialist, dental and behavioral health services. The findings reveal that Connecticut paid less than a peer state benchmark for 85% of services analyzed and less than a Medicare-based benchmark for 94% of services analyzed.”


This isn’t an issue just for ambulance services. The Connecticut Dental Association recently sent an open letter to Governor Lamont, urging him to prioritize raising reimbursement rates. In Stafford, however, the concern is to help recoup the cost of operating an ambulance service. Senator Gordon, a doctor, says he would like to see Connecticut reach 100% parity with Medicare and follow a model set forth by Indiana. (It is, however, worth noting that Hoosiers seem to have some of the same concerns about reimbursement rates that Nutmeggers do.) He says the state could phase in higher reimbursement rates of 75%-80% over the next few years. Additionally, the rates could rise at different intervals for different types of care ( i.e., in-patient care vs. ambulance services).


Gordon says, “There are a lot of savings if we can better invest.” He says that other states’ experience shows that fewer hospitalizations and other results of people accessing care earlier and more often could ultimately lead to savings. The question, he says, is, “What can we realistically do now?” He thinks additional funding of $250 million on top of what the state is already spending for Medicaid could be possible. 


The threat of federal funding cuts looming over schools

When I spoke with Senator Gordon, Connecticut – and the rest of the country – was still reeling from the whiplash of President Trump’s spending freeze, which was quickly undone in the face of legal challenges. “I'm not worried about Medicaid being cut,” says Gordon. Instead, he is keeping an eye on Congress to see what they do in the coming weeks and months.


However, educators, among others, are worried about what may still be coming down the road. Stafford, for instance, qualifies for Title I funding, and the school district currently estimates it will receive $263,330 as part of the 2025-2026 budget. Additionally, Stafford’s schools get Title II funding and are counting on $36,602. Those are just two of many federal funds Stafford’s schools count on. 


A chart from the most recent budget proposal for Stafford Public Schools detailing the federal grants the schools receive. (Source.)
A chart from the most recent budget proposal for Stafford Public Schools detailing the federal grants the schools receive. (Source.)

Grants aside, schools can also bill insurance, including Medicaid, for services they provide to students – such as occupational or physical therapy. This is an essential source of revenue for Stafford’s schools and supplements the increasing costs associated with special education. We’ve already discussed how the state’s funding of Medicaid impacts healthcare, but Healthline also reports, “Whether Medicaid falls under that review or not, Republican leaders are reportedly eyeing Medicaid as a major target in their plan to cut more than $5 trillion in federal spending over the next 10 years.” What happens with Medicaid funding at the national level directly impacts local budgets, so keep an eye on this.


Early voting and other unfunded mandates

Since coming into office, Morrison has expressed concern about the cost of early voting to towns. While the state provided some initial funding, it is not enough to cover the costs of 14 days of early voting. Stafford is not the only town that has found it onerous to fund these efforts. Last April, CT Insider reported, “A survey of local registrars conducted by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities this month fielded dozens of cost estimates ranging from $4,000 to $70,000 for municipalities to offer early voting.” 


This past year, the state also approved no-excuse absentee voting. With this in mind, Senator Gordon says there is a general consensus that the number of days of early voting must come down and that the state must give more money to the towns to fund it. “$13.6 million could have covered it,” he says. He believes the state could fund this mandate for the towns by moving money away from other programs that he says we don’t need. He says good bipartisan discussions are happening in both chambers and that help could be coming. That’s a change from last year when the state seemed unconcerned about the cries from towns that early voting was a burden on their budgets.


Meanwhile, Senator Gordon and Stafford’s Representative Kurt Vail worked to get a property tax exemption passed for veterans who are fully disabled. Unlike some other exemptions, this one is mandatory and has towns like Stafford, where budgets are already tight, worried about its impact. Some would like the state to offset the lost revenue to towns. Stafford’s Tax Assessor, Tami Rossi, says the exemption applies to 32 qualifying veterans in town and, based on the current mill rate, would result in an estimated $163,536.70 loss of tax revenue.


Senator Gordon says the law still needs to be reworded to clarify that it only applies to those who are 100% disabled and that he is pushing, along with others, to get the state to reimburse the town and that he believes the money is there to do it. Even if the governor does put this in his budget, there’s no guarantee it will be funded appropriately, as we see from the educational cost-sharing issues. 


Rural communities

In general, Senator Gordon says issues concerning rural areas are on the people's minds at the capitol. That includes issues around hospitals like Johnson Memorial and the closing of labor and delivery units. Last year, the Office of Health Strategy (OHS) agreed to let JMH close its labor and deliver with a few conditions, including:


  • Engage an independent third party to assess the need and feasibility of establishing a birthing center in the hospital’s service area.

  • Support establishing a birthing center and coordinating care with that center should those services be identified as needed and feasible.


“Birthing centers aren’t realistic,” says Gordon. He blames the executive branch for allowing closings and points to private equity groups buying hospitals as a problem. For his part, he’s introduced SB 260, which aims to address workforce issues impacting rural hospitals with loan forgiveness and/or a tuition payment program.


Additionally, Gordon is a member of the Planning and Development Committee and a proponent of what he calls “common sense approaches to housing affordability.” He says he wants to incentivize communities to build more affordable housing. He thinks the state could encourage more towns to tackle affordability by making grants available to towns and cities for technical help or the infrastructure needed to support denser populations. Additionally, he would like the state's 8-30g statute to adopt the United Way's ALICE data and measurements to decide what is affordable and who should qualify.



51 views
bottom of page