332 A.2d 113 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1974
In these actions, the plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment determining whether the system of financing public schools in this state, insofar as it applies to pupils in public schools in Canton, violates the United States constitution or the Connecticut constitution, or both. Although the plaintiffs also claim equitable relief, that relief is clearly only ancillary to the plaintiffs' principal claim. See Wenzel v. Danbury,
The claims made by the plaintiffs in these cases are similar to the claims that have been made and ruled upon, or are now pending, in cases in thirty-six other states. See 2 Report of Governor's Commission on Tax Reform 47 (Dec. 1972). Because education-financing systems vary from state to state, and because the provisions of state constitutions vary from state to state, decisions in other states raising the issue under a state constitution are of little value as precedents. The leading case raising the issue under the federal constitution, San Antonio IndependentSchool District v. Rodriguez,
Although there are significant differences between the Texas system and the Connecticut system, those differences do not, in the opinion of this court, make inapplicable to the Connecticut system the reasons *380
why the Texas system was held not to violate the United States constitution. Rodriguez is, therefore, controlling authority that the Connecticut system does not violate the equal protection clause of the United States constitution. Furthermore, Rodriguez
is also persuasive authority as to the proper construction of the equal protection clause, article
In 1965, this state function and duty to furnish public education was formally recognized and incorporated into the Connecticut constitution in article eighth, § 1, which reads as follows: "There shall always be free public elementary and secondary *381 schools in the state. The general assembly shall implement this principle by appropriate legislation." This constitutional provision has two important consequences for purposes of the present litigation. First, the state is now under a constitutional duty to furnish free public elementary and secondary education. See Murphy v. Berlin Board of Education, supra. Second, the General Assembly is under a constitutional duty to enact legislation that will be "appropriate" to carry out the state's constitutional duty to provide free public elementary and secondary schools. Hence, although the duty of educating children has been delegated by statute to municipalities, both the common law of this state and the Connecticut constitution provide that the duty of educating Connecticut children is upon the state, as a whole, and not upon its municipalities.
The mechanics by which the duty of operating and maintaining public schools has been delegated to the municipalities is to be found in statutes that antedate the constitution of 1965. The essential statutes are now General Statutes §
The duty-delegating statutes just cited are, of course, but a small section of the statutory scheme concerning the financing and operating of elementary and secondary schools. Those statutes have been singled out because they set forth the basic provisions authorizing the levy of local property taxes to operate schools and authorizing boards of education to exercise authority over the operation of the schools. Nevertheless, as noted previously, the duty to educate is that of the state; delegating the duty does not discharge it.
Despite the variety and number of state-aid-to-education grants, the local property tax is the principal source of funds for operating the public elementary and secondary schools. A state commission studying school finances issued a report containing the following estimate of the sources of school revenues in this state during the 1973-1974 school year: local taxes, 73.8 percent; state aid, 23.1 percent; federal aid, 3.1 percent. Interim Report of the Commission to Study School Finance and Equal Educational Opportunity, p. 10 (Feb. 1974). Because local property taxes are the principal source of revenue for schools, one significant way to measure the relative amount of money available for schools is to obtain the grand-list-per-pupil figure by dividing the grand list of the town by the number of pupils. The evidence in this case is that the range in the grand-list-per-pupil figure in this state varies from approximately $20,000 (Chaplin) to over $170,000 (Greenwich). Canton is at the lower end of the scale with approximately $38,000. The state average is $53,312.
In the light of these figures, it is not surprising that the school finance report should speak (p. 4) of "the manifest disparities in tax resources of Connecticut's school districts," or that the Governor's Tax Reform Commission Report should say (vol. 2, p. 53): "In short, many towns can tax far less and spend much more; and those less fortunate towns can never catch up in school expenditure because taxes are already as high as homeowners can tolerate.... This dual inequity — a family can pay more and get less for its children — is the fundamental issue of school finance." These generalizations find full support in a statistical analysis of the Connecticut school-financing system in a note in 81 Yale L.J. 1303 entitled "A Statistical Analysis of the School Finance Decisions: On Winning Battles and Losing Wars." In that note, which was described in *384 San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez,
There can be no doubt, then, that in Connecticut the amount of money that is spent for the public school education of a child is determined to a large degree by the tax base in the municipality he lives in, and that there are great disparities among the 169 towns in the amount of tax base per pupil. A low tax base in a given municipality does not, of course, mean that that municipality has a low per capita wealth. The plaintiffs, in other words, are not complaining that, under the present system, the children of poor parents live in towns with a low tax base and that, therefore, the present system discriminates against the poor. The plaintiffs in these and similar cases are complaining about "the sheer irrationality of a system that allocates education on the basis of property values.... [Their] argument would be similar and no less tenable should the state make educational expenditures dependent on some other irrelevant factor, such as the number of telephone poles in the district." Note, 81 Yale L.J. 1303, 1307.
In other words, the complaint about the present system is that the amount of money presently available for educating public school pupils in Connecticut is determined significantly by the town's grand list, which is totally unrelated to either the needs or wants of those pupils. A school district with a low per-pupil grand list has to narrow the breadth of its curriculum and its extracurricular programs. Additionally, it may not have the personnel necessary to cultivate "grantsmanship" (see note, 81 Yale L.J. 1303, 1322 n. 94); or to perceive, and provide *385 special instruction for, both handicapped and gifted children; or to furnish counseling to children in need of it; or to have a well-rounded vocational training program. Also, it may not be able to have a salary range adequate to attract the more competent and better-trained personnel. To the extent that lack of local property tax money imposes some or all of these deficiencies upon the pupils in one town to a substantially greater degree than upon the pupils in another town, the former pupils are being denied these educational advantages, not because they do not need them or want them, but because the present method of raising funds to provide for their education is not related to either their educational needs or their wants.
As previously noted, that present method is the result of legislation in which the state delegates to municipalities of disparate financial capability the state's duty of raising funds for operating public schools within those municipalities. That legislation gives no consideration to the financial capability of a municipality to raise funds sufficient to discharge another duty delegated to the municipality by the state, that of educating the children within the municipality. The evidence in this case is that, as a result of this duty-delegating to Canton without regard to Canton's financial capabilities, pupils in Canton receive an education that is in a substantial degree lower in both breadth and quality than that received by pupils in municipalities with a greater financial capability, even though there is no difference between the constitutional duty of the state to the children in Canton and the constitutional duty of the state to the children in other towns.
Under the present statutory system, the legislation ignores the disparities in the tax base of the municipalities and thereby ensures disparities in *386
public school education. The constitutional duty to educate the children of the state is a constitutional duty of the state; it is not the constitutional duty of the municipalities. If the state delegates that duty to the municipalities, the legislation that delegates that duty must, under article
The court is not unmindful of the testimony that there is no conclusive evidence that there is a correlation between education input (expenditures per pupil) and education output ("better educated" pupils). On the other hand, the evidence in this case is highly persuasive that, all other variables being constant, there is a high correlation between education input and education opportunity (the range and quality of educational services offered to pupils). In other words, disparities in expenditure per pupil tend to result in disparities in education opportunity.
Nor is the court unmindful of the testimony concerning the theory that there is a lessening marginal utility for each successive increment of education input. That theory does not mean, however, that the utility from any given increment, in terms of an increase in education opportunity, will not be commensurate with the expenditure necessary for that increment. There was direct evidence that an increase in per-pupil expenditures in Canton would raise the level of education opportunity there in significant and highly desirable respects. *387
Under article
Under the equal protection clause, an interference with the "fundamental right" to education requires "strict judicial scrutiny ... [which] means that the State's system is not entitled to the usual presumption of validity, that the State rather than the complainants must carry a `heavy burden of justification,' that the State must demonstrate that its educational system has been structured with `precision,' and is `tailored' narrowly to serve legitimate objectives and that it has selected the `less drastic means' for effectuating its objectives." San Antonio IndependentSchool District v. Rodriguez,
It has been argued that the Connecticut system may be justified on the ground that it serves the "legitimate objective" of local control. There is, however, no reason why local control needs to be diminished in any degree merely because some system other than the present system is adopted. Indeed, there was convincing evidence that other systems have been adopted without any loss of local control. Since that same objective may be achieved without the discrimination of the present system, *389 that objective may be achieved by "less drastic means" and is therefore no justification for interfering with the fundamental right to education.
The court holds that, under the reasoning and authority of Rodriguez, the Connecticut system violates article
The issue of sovereign immunity was, however, not decided by the court, on the ground that, first, the question should have been raised by a demurrer and not by a motion to erase and, second, if it is assumed that sovereign immunity is no defense where a complaint charges officials with violation of a plaintiff's constitutional rights (Weaver v. Ives,
As noted previously, the primary objective of the present actions is to obtain a declaratory judgment; the request for equitable relief is merely ancillary to that primary objective. That these actions are primarily actions for a declaratory judgment is significant to the question of sovereign immunity in two respects: First, "it has been held elsewhere that the doctrine [of sovereign immunity] was not meant to apply to actions which seek, as the plaintiff seeks here, nothing more than a declaration of legal rights.... Such a conclusion is consistent with the law of this state." Textron, Inc. v. Wood,
Accordingly, the court rules that the defense of sovereign immunity filed on behalf of state officials is overruled.
The court at this time retains jurisdiction of the action and will render no judgment other than a declaratory judgment that General Statutes §§