♪ > > This week, the wheelhouse.

> > they enter GI and a funding for students with disabilities, help on the way.

♪ And > > working at a good public on Frankie Graziano.

This is the wheelhouse show that connects politics.

The people we got your weekly dose of politics in Connecticut.

The right here.

Connecticut residents have the highest electricity bills in the country.

That's according to lending tree's analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

The state also has the second highest percentage of residents can't pay their electricity bills.

Leaders from both political parties have promised relief from the steep electric rates.

We're still in the dark about how they'll keep the lights on.

This hour, we'll discuss why energy rates are so high.

How we might bring them down and how the climate could be impacts housing ready to a lot easy work this hour.

We'll see later in the show.

How might propose changes to school funding impacts students with disabilities?

We'll talk about that later.

Now.

John Morris reporter covering energy and environmental policy for the Connecticut Mirror.

John, great to have you on the show.

Congratulations on the new job here.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having So glad to have you back on the show.

Also with us, Erika Tov the assistant professor of environmental resource Economics at the University of Connecticut.

Eric, thank you for coming on the show.

Thanks for having Thank you for coming into studios today.

Folks who want to ask you are your electric bills getting more expensive?

If you don't mind, please share like Give us kind of perspective like it went up this amount over this time.

That would be helpful.

Just so we can kind of dissect a situation work together here the conversation, 88 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, John.

> > During the State of the State address, what did Governor Ned Lamont have to say about energy costs?

Affordability and do you think that this is a top priority?

This legislative session?

Well, he said that he hears the concerns of Connecticut residents when they're talking about their energy bills and he says he sympathizes with them.

> > As for what to do about it, I think a lot of that remains to be seen is going to be worked out in the legislative session.

2 things in particular that he mentioned in his state of the State address had to do with natural gas and nuclear not putting those out of sight.

When we look at our resource mix in the future, I think a lot of people, realize and understand that.

Either expanding pipelines are building some type of new nuclear facility are years long projects.

And these not solutions that are going to help in the near term I did address that in his speech that these are longer term a potential fixes but in the near term, that's from what we've seen from lawmakers.

That's still of up in the air and up for debate.

Empathize with the people.

But it didn't seem like he was sympathetic to the work that lawmakers are doing or at least it sounded like he kind of challenge them in the speech that you feel that way as well.

> > Well, I think at least the come up with a creative solution.

I think both Lamont and lawmakers are in a difficult spot.

You mention that Connecticut having among the highest literacy rates in the country, but > > when you look at our neighbors, particularly the other New England states that share regional, let record with us.

They're all in the top 10, as is New York.

So one of the common refrains that you hear from policymakers and talking about this is that we're at the end of the natural gas pipeline, which New England gets the mature fast majority of electricity needs from natural generating electric plant and there's just a limited supply and capacity that can be delivered to us because of the pipeline constraints.

> > Supply to some people simply seen as just a logistic.

Obviously more people are concerned about the environment.

What natural gas the environment.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Will certainly weren't happy to hear mention natural gas and cool air in his speech.

Those are 2.

> > Resources, natural gas in particular they see is, you know, contributing to the problems that we have with global emissions and climate change.

New color is very expensive.

It hasn't been done in recent decades very many states.

There's only been a couple handful of projects that have come online in recent years.

And those have been very expensive and obviously, you know, there's the potential for catastrophe advocates for new color argue that standards have been.

Increased in recent years.

Reagan and there we have not seen any major meltdowns decades in this country that it's safe, clean alternative form of Erika tow Vij assistant professor of environmental and resource economics at the University of Connecticut.

What do we know about natural gas is impact on consumer prices > > if we were to go all-in say on this energy resources, could prices go down?

So so that's a great question.

You something important.

Remember about the gas prices is that they're very volatile.

So when you're super dependent gas prices, they might be cheap for a while, but they are affected by world offense by extreme weather events by things happening.

Other places and those prices can go up and down there for that can introduce a lot of volatility into people's electricity bills, something like nuclear and even renewables like solar and wind are much sort of more more stable and reliable sources of electricity.

Gas has been trending downward since the fracking revolution to around like 2007 or so.

Overall, gas prices have been have been coming down.

They spiked during COVID and with the war in Ukraine.

But have since come down again.

So, you know, gas has become quite cheap in the U.S. because of fracking.

But like John suggested, getting it you run into some some couldn't constraints related to the pipeline.

Credit network, you know, and so fixing that may require some big long-term investments in pipeline infrastructure that could give Connecticut better access to cheap gas coming out of fracking in Pennsylvania.

But could lock us in to fossil fuel infrastructure that last for decades and runs up against Connecticut's long term goals to reach net 0.

So it runs up against net-zero initiatives.

There is the volatility aspect.

Is there anything else that you could think about an long-term impacts is associated with doubling down on natural gas.

> > You know, so gas is a lot cheaper than coal also, you know, you know, Connecticut has made a transition away from coal power and that is a huge game for air-quality.

It's a huge game for carbon emissions.

But gas is still felt.

Fossil thing is a really potent greenhouse gas and it's still has those volatility elements to it.

And so I I guess an important part towards the transition towards a more renewable based energy system because you can turn on a gas peaker plant quickly to fill in gaps you know, this sounds not always shining the winds not always nuclear is not fulfilling the full energy needs of the state and even if you wanted to reinvest more new clear, that's a very, very long term solution like John suggested.

So gas plays an important role in filling those gaps.

We know our listeners care about sustainable energy and the environment.

More than 700 of you flagged it as one of your top 5 concerns in Twenty-twenty Four's election survey.

We more than 700 responses chime in.

Now, if you'd like to talk to us, calls with any questions you have about your electric Bill.

8, 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, and or Stan.

We have a caller right now.

Catherine, from Norfolk.

Good morning, Catherine.

> > Good morning.

How are you?

> > I'm doing well.

Thank you so much for calling the wheel house this morning.

> > We recently received a a bill that our usage, he was.

To tie actually you that he was on half sorry and essentially the delivery charge was twice our $110 for what we've used over 250 for the delivery charge it was surprising to look as we have solar panels will only really paying out of pocket for and energy bills about 5 months of the year.

very lucky that the penalty was well as they do.

But, you at this time of year, obviously, shorter days mean energy production.

it sounds like you continue to be flabbergasted by that bill.

> > to say the least.

> > Oh, my God will.

I hope there's some relief in sight for you.

And I'm gonna talk right now to Eric about that Bill.

And any thoughts you might have on that.

Thank you, Catherine.

So she's talking about the delivery fee being higher than the usage fee.

So its like, what do I do?

Catherine's case, it sounds like she's doing right by the environments.

Got some solar panels on.

But that bill necessarily going down.

Yes.

Yeah, Kathryn, I think that you're expressing a pretty common sentiment amongst a lot of people in Connecticut to look at their electricity > > And really get shocked that bill.

they see it broken down into this sort of the supplier.

That usage part of the bill and then often the distribution part, which is sometimes shockingly high, right?

So in Connecticut to supply of electricity is unbundled or separated from the distribution parts.

So the big utility companies like Eversource are not doing electricity generation, that they're purchasing the actual electricity supply from third-party producers on the open market.

And they're passing that through 1, 2, 1, to consumers.

So they're not marking up the electricity supply.

But then the core business of the utilities, the core part where they able to make money is on the distribution segment.

So that's maintaining and, you know, investing in the grid infrastructure.

The polls, the hookups and all of that last mile delivery part.

And that's where you're seeing that large distribution charge that charge is, as you're saying, you feel like that's really high.

A lot of people share that sentiment and that reflects on a big debate, a big policy public policy debate right now about how you know that the government through that public utilities, regulatory authority should be, you know, regulating the ability of utilities to to set rates and increase rates, which is purely reflected in that distribution charge.

So that's current debate right now about, you know, what those rates should be simple minded.

But like Katherine, thinking about my bill.

I'm taking away from the conversation that you just had or or the explanation there that it's going to be high as long as our infrastructure is.

> > As such right word, the big problem is we're not generating enough supply.

We don't have the infrastructure at the end of the pipeline for natural gas.

We're relying on other states for wind energy hydropower.

So like it's going to be like this for a little while.

I would imagine.

Is that what you're telling us?

So to some extent, yes, there there's limited options to really dramatically reduce prices both on the supply side and on the distribution side.

So from supply its.

> > You know, where can Connecticut find a cheaper sources of electricity generation and we can have a bigger discussion about about what those might be.

You know, we've talked about nuclear currently.

Connecticut is locked into a long-term high-cost contract for nuclear power from the Millstone Power Power plant.

You know, we can talk about solar.

We can talk about offshore wind natural gas is a whole variety of options for finding cheaper supply.

And then there's this distribution segment.

So eversource and you, I and utilities have to invest to maintain complicated, great infrastructures.

And this is increasingly complicated as as people plucking more electric cars as we get more distributed, solar and things like that.

But there's also a question about regulating utilities so that they're, you charging appropriate rates and making what the city, you know, what society thinks is an appropriate profit margin.

And, you know, for the services that they're providing.

So that's a public policy discussion that I think it's fair to have before we get into that public policy discussion because I know it's a hot topic at the state legislature right now.

> > Just want to peel back and talk about the resources you were talking about energy generation.

Right now we are relying heavily on natural Could you?

Could you tell us about how much John we rely at least how much of this supports our grid right now?

> > Yes, new color is about one 3rd of the electricity that is generated in Connecticut and natural gas makes up the vast majority of the rest.

If you go on to ISO New England website, they actually have a real-time resource mix for.

You can see day to day.

Where we are getting our electricity from its ports.

Remember that while the utilities are purchasing electricity behalf of their customers in Connecticut because we exist on a regional grid.

Really, you know, a electorate that goes into the great in New Hampshire could be used to turn on a light bulb in Connecticut and vice versa.

In the wintertime.

As Erik mentioned, you know, we have these things called peaker plants.

And when the natural the demand for natural increases so much because people are also using it to heat their homes.

You'll see uncertain, really cold days like we got a lot of snow last night.

You may see petroleum jump up in the resource mix because these older plants that offer the majority of the year get turned on petroleum in order to meet the needs.

So it sounds like natural gas is not necessarily > > going to be an option that I guess cuts are bills down dramatically, at least so.

Why do we continue thinking about this is an option?

Why is this something that we have to continue to use?

I think when you talk to lawmakers, a lot of them want to take an all the above road approach or so.

> > Supply usage as you're talking about before, you know, that takes up about 2025% of the bill.

I think when I looked at my most recent bill, so natural gas will impact you that portion of the bill won't really affect your distribution rates going down.

You have to look at different public policies to address that.

Nuclear You talked about it being a 3rd of what we generate a on a given So are what we use on a given day.

So.

> > What goes into using more nuclear power and is that something that people think can help us over the long term.

So the only nuclear power plant in Connecticut is Millstone, which is located in Waterford.

The plant is several decades old.

And up until recently, there was actually a moratorium in Connecticut on building any power.

I had 2 or 3 years ago.

Lawmakers came in and they actually lifted moratorium.

But specifically for the Millstone site.

So what you hear when talking about new colors, actually, mostly people talking about these things called small modular reactors, which isn't really the classic giant nuclear power plant that you think of historically, these are smaller reactors, maybe about 300 megawatts.

That can be manufactured off site and brought in.

I don't know of any that are actually online in the United States.

So this is more of a so a forward thinking solution lawmakers are talking about when the technology is there something they'd like to invite into the state?

I'm sure that's something that's an exciting challenge for nuclear physicist and nuclear engineers is any till any company.

Eric.

Have like a monopoly over the system here in Connecticut.

Or at least are there may be a couple of countries that excuse me, companies that are more prominent here.

And how does that impact pricing?

Sure.

That's a that's an important part of the system, right?

Connecticut has several regulated monopolies.

So these are, you know, companies that you you see on your left wrist to pro Eversource or U I and these are basically they're called regulated monopolies because we're the electricity grid.

It doesn't really make sense to have a bunch of companies building separate cribs and competing with each other and duplicating all of that infrastructure would be really inefficient.

And so it's it's a natural monopoly.

that make sense to just have one or 2 companies doing this?

But however, you know, monopolies by their nature will typically charge overcharge and undersupply services unless you regulate them in the public interest and so pretty much everywhere that has this type of system, you know, pretty much in every state.

There's a public utility commission whose job it is to regulate and oversee these monopolies.

So that they are, you know, setting their prices and making their investments to provide high-quality electricity distribution for reasonable prices for the household and the business consumers.

I want to open this next question up to both of you.

Start with Jax.

I want to lawmakers lawmakers are addressing this.

This is a simple supply and demand issue the demand I would imagine has gone up in Connecticut.

Is that true?

And if so, why?

It has gone up and experts predict that it's going to continue going up in coming years.

Part of it, you know, as Erik mentioned, as more people plugging in their electric cars are appliances at home that might be setting up more energy even though > > we have done a lot on energy efficiency that help lower some of that demand.

But at the same time that that's coming online.

You have things data centers AI, you know, all these new technologies that really s*** a lot of electricity from the grid that are going to pose a challenge for us in future.

I yeah, I totally agree.

And another part to consider is not just changes and electricity demand.

> > But also the challenges associated with creating sort of a smart grid, right?

So more and more people want rooftop solar and they want to feed it back into the system when when they're over, you know, producing more than they need in their household.

And all of that sort of net metering and feeding back into the grid creates complexity, smart metering and people being able to dynamic pricing so that, you know, the utility can set pricing sort of our to our to manage spikes in demand for says supply and also distributed generation.

So things like utility scale solar, which is, you know, when you see solar panels out in a field somewhere that type of electricity generation is more distributed than our traditional system where we had a few giant power plants.

So all of that makes, you know, constructing and managing this cred increasingly challenging.

Tremendous conversation thus far.

Anybody tuning into the wheelhouse, including the host of this program right now feel smarter by talking to Erica to Ovitz, who is the professor of environmental and resource economics at the University of Connecticut.

And of course, good friend John Morris reporter covering energy and environmental policy for the Connecticut mayor.

They're gonna stick around for a little bit.

Coming up, a look at the tension between the public utilities, Regulatory Authority, a cape Euro and Connecticut utility companies like Eversource United Illuminating Avangrid.

What do your electric bills look like these days?

Tell us 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7 more wheelhouse in a moment.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ This is the wheelhouse from Connecticut, public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

Why are Connecticut's energy Bill?

So high?

And what can people do about the soaring costs?

Joining me to shed some light on this is Erica tow Vicha, the assistant professor of environmental and resource economics at UConn.

John Morris reporter covering energy and environmental policy for the Connecticut near.

Let us know questions you have about your electric Bills.

8, 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, shout out to Katherine Norfolk, who told us about her energy bills.

Earlier, we were able to kind of dissect this and at least help or try to understand what's happening.

Not that anybody wants understand because I'm sure they just want to pay less for electricity.

Jon?

Connecticut's largest electric, gas and water utilities companies eversource 100 or at least the large companies that serve Connecticut have filed a lawsuit against the state regulators accusing the leader of the public utilities, regulatory authority wielding too much control over their business.

Somebody is name.

We're hearing about a lot right now is Marissa Gillette.

Here's a list for getting her job for us.

It is.

Why are we hearing Reese's name so much?

> > Marissa July, is it Governor Ned Lamont appointee chair Perez.

She came on board in 2019 and a lot of frustrations and back and forth between here and the utilities kind of date back to she's taken approach what she calls performance-based regulation, which is really trying to look at, as Erik mentioned before the utilities in the regulated market that we have are allowed to make a profit off the investments that they make in Connecticut.

She argues that, you know, for too long, the state regulators didn't really look at the whether those investments were in the best interest of rate payers and trying to take a more.

serious look at whether those are, you know, always miss the right and necessary investments to make.

And then also, you know, how much profit they're about to make off of that.

The utilities are you basically arguing that the approach that she's taken over the past couple years cut into their profits, particularly when compared to some of the neighboring states that they also operate in.

And that's making it more difficult regulatory environment for them to do their business and invest here in Connecticut.

So there's kind of been this lawn some long simmering tension between the 2 sides there.

Nick, it really does love the surface last week with this lawsuit, they filed.

There's that effort.

I also understand there's an effort to go public with concerns that they have about pricing here in Connecticut.

> > And at least try to address some of the concerns that rate payers have.

Susan Raff told me that she recently went to Berlin and went to the facility.

I think that Eversource has down there and it was part of an effort to maybe I don't know, try to maybe get people to be empathetic to what's happening there.

So.

Is this a situation where we should be feeling bad for the company's here or just help us understand what they're going through versus the job that Pierre has to do here at?

Well, I their argument, as you mentioned, facility they have in Berlin, their argument is that.

> > a lot of the technology that goes into building and maintaining the distribution ever counties because as we talked about before, they're not actually generating electricity, they're just buying it and sending it to people's homes that that technology is really expensive.

You know, they just announced to Boston or sorry in Cambridge last week.

You know, the opening of this big state-of-the-art facility that they invested in there and the story that you hear from them is that, you know, if we want to make these types of investments here in Connecticut, that costs money you know, our business model is a investor owned for-profit business model.

So they need to be able to make some money off it so that that's I think the story they're telling whether that's a, you know, the story people in Connecticut want to be empathetic to accept them.

Walk me through some of the interests at play here.

So we talked about a couple of the stakeholders here.

We have the state regulatory authority.

> > We have the people and we have a company so help us understand.

Why you might see an eversource having trouble with some of the dynamic at play here with profits being cut into and then a regulatory authority being concerned about how eversource is charging folks.

Yeah, I think that, you know, there it's not bad think that there's a sort of a positional relationship between the public, you know, utility regulator and the regulated utilities.

That's sort of a situation that set up to have different sides competing and trying to foist their interests.

And it's important that regulatory you know, the regulatory authority representing the people of the state of Connecticut has the ability to to also make its voice heard for a long time.

The that authority just passed through, you know, approving all of the rate increases that were requested.

resulting in high electricity bills for consumers.

So the fact that they're standing up now a little bit pushing back utilities is doing their job as a regulator.

Right?

So at the same time, we can't just blind the, you know, think that it's always a good idea shoot down every rate increase because like John pointed out, large investments are needed to maintain, you know, high quality grid infrastructure to maintain reliability, integrate renewables into our grant.

So that's sort of some of these competing interests.

If you look Eversource is considered one of the more profitable electricity utility companies in the U.S. they've returned, you know, profit rates over the last 10 years between 10 and 14%.

So, you know, we could think has, you as as a society, what is inappropriate profit level for regulated utility?

And that's a discussion that that we could have.

They took a large loss this past year because unregulated segment of the company so apart that's outside of their distribution business, you know, made large investments in offshore wind and they ran into some some problems with that and eventually backed out taking a pretty large loss so that you know, could be pointed to, you know, something that's created some challenges in this past year with profitability for Eversource but that's again in a separate segment of their business.

That doesn't mean you don't necessarily directly affect the rates.

They should be charging to consumers.

And it's not just a question about supply and demand here power generation.

There's also other reasons why para might be interested in what businesses are doing.

We know that they've amped up regulation efforts since there was that whole debacle with Norwich utilities a few years ago with the the retreat I think that that resort in West Virginia and then the Kentucky Derby.

So this is not just a situation where we're talking about what what is happening with supplying them.

And it's also trying to make sure that these companies are doing right by their customers.

Exactly.

So I think there there has been effort by by legislators to make sure that eversource and you I are not able to count things like lobbying expenditures, payments to the Board of of Board of Governors sort of executive and things like that.

Not able to count those in the costs when they're when they're trying to, you know, figure out what is their, you know, legitimate costs maintaining the grid first is, you know, their profit margin.

So I think that that's progress in the right direction.

Thinking about having access to data and transparency for the regulator to understand what are the investments being made by these utilities?

And are they really in the public interest wind power, one possible alternative to natural gas?

Does the state have any wind power projects that in the works?

Currently and I think it would be understandable anybody was confused about what's happening with wind power in Connecticut because there seems to be a back and forth on whether or not were even involved in negotiations.

So help us understand those.

There is one project that is going to be coming online.

I think it's estimated right now for late 2026.

That's revolution wind, which about a dozen miles off?

I recall off the coast of Block Island last year, sunrise wind, which is the wind farm that was deployed from the state here in new London, which some of your listeners may recall the state invested a lot of money in redeveloping as a launching point for offshore wind that came online last year.

But the power from that is actually being center Long Island's he's not coming into Connecticut Revolution, wind the power police but between Connecticut and Rhode Island and then but beyond that, there are no wind facilities that currently have power purchase agreements with Connecticut and > > that are coming online in last year.

The state announced that they were declining to participate and this kind of consortium with Massachusetts, Rhode Island to procure new offshore wind energy.

And, you know, with Trump administration coming on earlier this month, I think that's called into question whether we're going to see any new offshore wind projects in the next couple years.

Yeah.

So it sounds like wind is not something we can necessarily rely on this part to be a part of that.

> > That situation where we have natural gas, some nuclear power petroleum in the winter.

So at least next at least for the next few years.

Yes, there's also the specter of a trade war with the between the United States and Canada.

major supplier of hydro power to Connecticut.

This was highlighted recent story by our colleague Jeanne Allen Spiegel's.

She reported on a potential 10% tariff.

I want to get this right imposed on Canadian energy and electricity.

Is that a real thing, John?

Could that impact bills here or does that just get to the situation where lawmakers and local officials are just worried about what might happen at the federal government level.

And it's not really a real thing yet.

I think it is a very real concern.

I a would have ask and I don't know.

I believe those tariffs were temporarily put on pause as they negotiate further.

But in addition to that, that potentially affecting hydro power that comes down from Quebec can is obviously also a huge source natural gas.

They, you know, flows into the United States and back as we know, provides most our electricity here.

So there's also a big potential.

Should those tariffs go into a plate into place to impact?

They are on pause, but it's out.

But that's the point.

I think we wanted to make sure that if there is an issue between Canada and the United States.

If it does get all the way to a trade war, we'd pretty pretty impacted here because we rely so much on and they're on their energy.

Any tips to help consumers understand the pricing aspect of it.

Thankfully, we're here when Catherine from Norfolk had a call earlier.

Do you have any advice for our listeners on what portions of their electric bills they should be playing close attention to if at all.

So the part of the electric bill you know, you can potentially affect usage or the supply part of the charge.

that's again, unbundled from distribution and you're able to go and shop around this online platforms where you can shop around and switch your electricity usage or your supplier to another company.

So there's a variety of companies.

It's not going to give you a huge amount of savings, but you might save a few dollars a month.

So it's worth taking a look and thinking whether you want to switch to a different supplier again, you're kind of stuck with the distributor that you have in your area.

So that part of the charges, unfortunately, much, much harder to change as at the household level.

You know, there's a variety of other things that we can do as as House wants to try to reduce electricity bills.

So you can you can look into like a home energy efficiency audit come over, you know, and do some tests and analysys give you some tips about what you could change about your house to be more efficient and households can also consider things he pumps and rooftop solar.

It might not make sense for every household and unfortunately, it's often quite complicated for households to figure out the whole variety of contractual arrangements and financing plans options for rebates and subsidies that are often really confusing to access.

I think there scope for public policy to make it easier for House wants understand those options and actually, you know, access the types of of potential incentives.

They have for for thinking about things like he pumps and a top seller.

Is that consistent with what the Lamont Administration is telling people to do or is there anything else in there that?

People should be trying to do?

Yeah, I think one of energy efficiency has been one of their big push is in the recent years deep has a lot of programs as Erik mentioned, you can even go through.

I believe you're yet you.

The utilities offer services that you can access.

> > And he also mentioned, you know, looking at potential different suppliers of electricity.

One of the reforms that lawmakers passed several years ago because there are some concerned that people are being taken advantage of While these are fixed term contracts that he's talking about, you can actually the consumer can leave at any time.

So, for example, a few fronts signed a six-month contract to purchase electricity on the Connecticut marketplace of specific price 3 months down the line you see, you know, prices have gone down.

You can switch no cost yourself.

Very important conversation that we just had with John Moritz.

> > The energy and environmental reporter policy.

A policy reporter for the Connecticut Mayor.

John, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning.

Thank you for having me.

And of course, Erica, to Ovitz, the assistant professor of environmental and resource economics that you got.

Eric, thank you for coming.

thank you so much.

Thank you guys for making us smarter.

Helping us understand our energy bills a bit coming up, we're going to hear about proposed changes to school funding for students with disabilities in Connecticut.

Love for you to join that conversation as well.

8, 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 720-9677.

Stay tuned for one more segment of the ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ This is the wheelhouse from Connecticut, Public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

Governor Ned Lamont is prioritizing funding for students with disabilities during this year's legislative session.

Or at least he says he is.

But that doesn't mean everyone is happy with his proposed budget.

Of course, you got to go through the legislature to help us understand that.

I'm joined by Jessica Hart K Education reporter for the Connecticut Mirror Jessica.

So glad to have you on today.

Thanks for having me, Frank.

Thanks for coming back to the studio.

Also with us and on Dama senior political reporter for Wsh been.

Thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for having Great to see you this morning.

Join the conversation.

We 888-720-9677, 8, 8, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, a Jessica during a news briefing at the state Capitol in Hartford.

Governor Ned Lamont announced that his budget includes these proposals to change funding for students with disabilities.

What are some of those changes > > yeah.

So the 2 biggest changes is in total.

He wants to get 54 million dollars into special education and that's not funding that we're going to see and tell.

Fiscal year 27.

So just for context, we're in fiscal year.

25 right now.

That's all the way till July.

And every fiscal year resets in July.

So that's something we're not going to see until 2026.

And so that 54 million is divided into 40 Million.

That would go into excess cost.

What that basically means a special education with some students with severe disabilities.

They're sent out of district and when those costs for tuition or whatever trams transportation add up to more than 4.5 times what the actual cost of educating a people is then districts can see some reimbursement.

So he wants to invest 40 million into that grant.

That already is under funded and the second thing is investing 14 million dollars into trying to develop programs to keep those students in district because one of the biggest costs is when you send a student out of district, you're paying tuition rates.

There isn't a cap on those tuition rate so you could be paying upwards of $100,000.

First child to be outsourced in a district to receive education.

So those are the 2 biggest proposals that he recommended his budget.

> > Educators and advocates long have long been asking for increased funding for students with disabilities by the bump this year.

> > Well, you know, it costs a lot of money.

the special education budgets in Connecticut about to about 2.8 billion dollars a year.

> > most of that is of the local districts and the only reinvest what Jessica was saying about the excess of costs, grants, you know, the biggest part of the money.

So this will boosted a little bit, it's not that much.

special education is extremely expensive, especially if you taking the children out of district.

So that's why there's also the emphasis to have more programs within the district to try and reduce the cost.

> > The prospect of diminishing federal funds is the elephant in the room.

Do we know who would be impacted?

Most of that money goes away or even how they might be impacted.

> > city's largest cities, all the ones should shoulder the burden for special education about the about 20% special education children are in the largest cities of Bridgeport and New Haven and Hartford.

And eats up about 20 to 30% of the education budget.

So that's a huge chunk.

if the federal goes, if the state will have to fill that gap because the city's certainly would not be able to.

> > How legislators Jessica responding to Governor Lamont suggestion that maybe the state dips into surplus funds.

And is this something seems like it's a it's it's kind of.

I don't know a maiden voyage or a first time for Connecticut.

They were actually considering at least under the Obama administration.

You some of these surplus funds for something like this.

> > I think the response is kind of what you would expect it to be.

And a lot Republicans are critical of going into the surplus funding while some Democrats are saying, you know what, we need to invest in these services.

I think one of the things that is most interesting about this debate is there was a task force that was convened by statue back in 2021, if I'm not mistaken and they came out with their final recommendations for special education earlier this year and they were calling for a lot more funding.

They say, while we need to fully fund excess costs and those costs right now in this fiscal year are over 300 million dollars Connecticut's funding that to about 181 million dollars.

So that's still a big chunk of money that's missing.

There are other proposals out there that we're calling for.

tuition like grants that if you go a new study to be a teacher teach certifications or have a certification special education, maybe we get some money into this tuition so you can go not have that financial burden of getting an education and going into the classroom.

So what I'm hearing a lot of is just there's a lot of criticisms, I think on both sides.

There's some saying it's not enough.

There's other people saying we can't be going into our surpluses funds, especially as you guys mentioned of this looming threat of if federal funding is cut.

54 million dollars.

> > You're talking about 2.8 billion dollar budget for special bond.

That's not a lot of money.

> > Because I thought about is starting look out late or math.

Here is quick also hosting show.

> > But Jessica says that some people would like 300 million dollars.

54 into 300 Million.

That's about a 6 of what people are looking for.

So help us out here.

> > Well, they'll take it ask for more.

That's what the > > but it is it is an of the problem that we have is that the state to come up with a budget before the federal budget.

> > Before they know what's coming down from the federal government, although we might have a sense because the preparing the budget right now on the federal level.

> > But it's not we're too sure what's going to happen, especially if the abolish the Department of Education and send the money to the states.

How would that be determined?

> > Jessica, the ex source, the act excess cost grant that you mentioned earlier in the show, one of educators sold you about why it's important that we find ways to educate more of these students requiring these additional resources within their districts.

Rather than having their parents pull students out of district to get the education services they need.

> > I think there's 2 aspects to that.

The first some more of just like a human level is it's good to be educated in your own district, right?

It's good to know that your friends live in your neighborhood.

It's easier to see them after schools easier to participate in sports.

I think that's one of the aspects of when you keep kid in district there in their own community rather than having to be bused, maybe upwards of an hour away.

How do you hanging out with those kids after school kind of so I think that's one aspect of it.

But the second thing kind of what we've been talking about, just the cost when you are sending kids out of strict and you're spending $100,000 on one student.

So basically what those costs also come from is in these private programs, the way they are able to hire teachers, it's they can have more competitive salaries.

And then that just kind of is a burden back on the district.

So I think there's this push and pull of we need to invest in.

Keep these kids in district has it in the long term.

It's going to be cost savings if we can find a way to have competitive salaries for the special education, teachers, maybe they can take more students in those classrooms.

Instead of only sending one student for that same cost.

> > And there's added issue here because there's not a set amount of money for each child.

Each child depending on the needs.

You know, the funding will increase depending on the need.

So a school district that has not had to do deal with a special ed student, all of a sudden they get 3 the next year and the budget is totally blown.

it's it's the uncertainty about how much want to be, especially for the small districts that don't have that many students just having one or 2 special students play havoc on their budgets.

> > It can.

But being in the community of families with special students with developmental disabilities and intellectual disabilities as well.

You understand that.

First of all, folks are untitled by federal law to an education.

And then, of course, there's also a consideration that it just makes people's lives easier when they're able to go in district.

So I understand why there's that back and forth.

As you see that some school districts obviously feel like they can't pay, but also are entitled to provide this education.

So you had a chance to talk, Jessica, to Connecticut Education, associate President Kait Diaz.

What did she have to say about this proposal?

> > I think it kind of goes back to what box set of any money is good money when you're having these conversations and you're seeing at least a little investment, that's a step in the right direction.

I think one of Kates, big criticisms is again, who's educating these kids, even if we're putting money into the excess costs grant.

And we're trying to develop programs.

There still is this elephant of the room of a teacher shortage.

We don't have teachers in the classrooms.

It's really hard to recruit teachers into the classrooms right now.

I mean, a big conversation is pay pair educators.

A lot of people always use the analogy.

You can make more at McDonald's than being a parent educator.

And and so I think that's the big criticism.

There is.

Yes, these investments into programs and keeping students in district is obviously useful and welcomed.

But the same time there needs to be an investment in the actual personnel and recruiting people into this making an enticing profession because those are the people actually working with these kids.

You can invest money all you want into programs.

But if you have no one to staff them, what good are the programs?

> > Shout out to the parents out there because when you're talking about this education and talking to these families as I have and being in this community, it is so important to have one to one support.

That's really what can make a difference in a child's life.

And those paraeducators are carrying out that job at dawn.

This isn't the end of the story, right?

The proposed increase obviously needs to go through the state legislature.

So help us understand what we can look for next.

Is this something that will go through a committee anytime At the end of the month, we'll start the meetings.

> > Well, basically what happens is government makes his proposal and that starts the conversation.

And then the appropriations, the finance committees meet and they try and hammer out some type of a committee proposal and only happens is that we end up with the Democrats have because they have the majority generally, it's whatever the Democrats want.

gets passed and then they have make some type of compromise with the government the floor.

A comes back and is passed.

So we've got a ways to go.

But that's pretty much the conversation right now is on.

Whether or how the they have this thought the governor has decided that he's adjust the guardrails.

So how much of an adjustment get be the issue conversations going forward?

> > I'll give you the last minute here, Jessica.

Help me understand what to look forward to next or at least a colder as we should be watching throughout this process.

Is there a particular committee meeting that you're looking at or is there also the the federal funding issue, which I know could come afterwards, but what should we be watching?

You're in the next month or so?

> > I think what I'm watching right now is there's a select committee on special education this session.

And and they're doing listening tours across the state.

I think they had their first one last week.

They have to this week.

I think their upcoming ones are in Bridgeport and Hartford, which back to what the Bucs said are some of the biggest districts are educating students with disabilities and so these are opportunities for people to come out and talk to lawmakers to their face and say this is an issue.

This is a problem.

This is what we want to see.

this select committee is supposed to give recommendations and proposed built.

That will then go to the education committee.

So that's something I think I'm watching.

Is that you have lawmakers who are going out into communities.

This is an opportunity for families who have students with disabilities and children with disabilities to actually make their voices heard and say what is an issue is child receiving the services they need?

> > Jessica Harkey working very hard to get this information out to the people of Connecticut uncovering students with disabilities and education as a whole for the Connecticut Mirror.

Thank you for coming the show.

Thanks.

Thank Look at her work in CT near Dot Org.

Bob, Also on the show today, senior political reporter for Wsh you can find his work at Wsh you Dot Org.

Bob, thank you so much.

> > Thank you, Frank.

> > Today show produced by Chloe Win edited by Robin doing a can.

And Matt Dalton, our technical producer is Dylan Reyes.

Download the wheelhouse anytime on your favorite podcast app.

Frankie Graziano.

Happy Valentine's Day.

We love you all.

This is the wheelhouse.

A big radio hug to all of you.

Thank you for listening.

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