Connecticut: SPED system 'truly broken'; "nearly one-in-five" students qualify for IEPs

Sept 1, 2026, WTNH:  State working to fix Connecticut’s ‘broken’ special education funding system

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — Comptroller Sean Scanlon said Connecticut's underlying system for special education is "truly broken" in a budget surplus update Tuesday, highlighting staffing shortages, rising rates of out-of-district and out-of-state placements, and strains on district resources.

Districts K-12 spent $3.3 billion on special education in the 2024-2025 school year, taking into account transportation, teacher and aid staffing, supplies and equipment. Spending depends on the intensity of student needs, and extra costs can run as high as $200,000 per year for one student.

Nearly one-in-five Connecticut public school students now qualify for an individualized education program, which is substantially more than in the past, the comptroller said.

"While state funding for education has increased, the underlying system is truly broken," the state comptroller said. "The good news is that, whether through the Citizens' Assembly I'm working with or the Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission, there is real momentum to finally replace this broken system with the true, structural change we need to reform how education is funded in Connecticut." . . .

The number of "high-cost" students eligible for the grant dipped in the pandemic aftermath but grew to 4,557 as of the 2025-2026 school year, up 4.7%. Conversely, the amount of all expenses above the 4.5 threshold rose from 197.8 million (in 2019-2020) to $317 million (in 2025-2026).

The driver of this crisis of insufficient funding is more related to higher rates and prices than a rising number of particularly "high-cost" students, Scanlon said.

The comptroller said the result of this excess cost funding structure is that districts do not know how much funding they will receive from the state, in the form of Excess Cost Grants, until long after their budgets have been set.

Recent state programs and legislation, such as the Special Education and Expansion Development (SEED) grant and the High-Quality Special Education Incentive Grant, put Connecticut more in line with other states in terms of special education. Still, the primary mechanism is the excess cost threshold model.

In the economic update Tuesday, Scanlon said despite significant additional state investment, rising student needs and costs are having the state rethink how Connecticut provides and pays for K-12 education. . . .