Radio Station Gains Grant to Cover COVID Effects in County

Probe analyzes how COVID-19 affects the area and ways to prevent recurrences

Sacred Heart University’s public radio station, WSHU Public Radio, has received a $14,963 grant from Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) to support a four-part broadcast series, “What COVID Has Wrought—Education & Transportation in Fairfield County.”

The website for SJN states, “Solutions journalism investigates and explains, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people try to solve widely shared problems.” Its grant enables WSHU to investigate how COVID-19 has affected communities’ education budgets and transportation around Fairfield County, and to delve into solutions for alternative funding.

These issues become even more pressing when considering the influx of New York City residents relocating to Connecticut’s less-crowded suburbs, seeking more space to socially distance. More than 16,000 New Yorkers have moved to suburban Connecticut since March, according to the U.S. Postal Service. This influx is having a negative effect on community resources that already are suffering because of dwindling tax bases due to local companies downsizing, filing for bankruptcy or closing permanently, alongside high vacancy rates in corporate parks throughout the area.

Fairfield County is WSHU’s focus because it is the state’s economic backbone. Many Fortune 500 companies are based there, and high vacancy rates equate to less corporate and property taxes. This creates a domino effect, negatively impacting other businesses that are reliant on these corporations and their occupancy throughout the county, such as materials suppliers, food establishments and transportation companies. “Between containing four of Connecticut’s largest cities and its close proximity to New York City, Fairfield County is a major economic center of the Constitution State,” said Rima Dael, WSHU station manager.

Transportation:

As of December, 10 million Americans were out of work because of pandemic-related job losses (down from 22 million between March and August). Many who are still working have been doing so remotely due to COVID-19 concerns, and some who still commute to work no longer feel comfortable on public transportation because of the lack of social distancing, opting to take their cars instead. However, low-wage-earners who cannot afford a car rely on public transportation, and if budget cuts diminish bus and train services, these workers could be left stranded.

Posing the question, “How do we reconcile our long-term environmental goals with the need to get through the pandemic?” WSHU will investigate the efficacy of potential solutions for two groups: people who commute inside their own municipalities and those who come in from neighboring communities and states. These possible solutions include:

• Rethinking existing bus routes and the creation of “limited-stop” or “express” routes
• Integrating Uber or Rideshare “pods”
• Establishing municipal bikeshare programs
• Using Metro-North as the backbone of all commuting solutions

Education:

Tax revenue is down because of the pandemic, but school enrollment is up. Public schools in Fairfield County’s wealthy communities rank among the best in the country, while those in troubled cities such as Bridgeport rank among the worst, due to the variance in funding. Wealthy towns and cities have high-end facilities and can attract the best teachers with higher salaries, in turn producing the best student outcomes. Schools in the county’s financially hampered cities struggle to meet state standards. This was the driving force behind the Sheff vs. O’Neill lawsuit, “a longstanding school desegregation case against the State of Connecticut that seeks to address the extreme racial and economic segregation of students in the city of Hartford in relation to its surrounding suburbs,” according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. 

Currently, all school districts are faced with major funding problems due to the pandemic. Tax revenue is down, parents are unemployed and Connecticut is facing a budget crisis. Comptroller Kevin Lembo, in an update Dec. 1, estimated a deficit of $879.4 million for fiscal year 2021, according to the Office of the State Comptroller official website. Connecticut school districts now also face the addition of students whose families migrated from New York City due to the pandemic, which has created extra pressures for schools offering “in-person” classes.

These statistics lead WSHU to question whether it’s time to completely rethink how schools are funded. They will examine the effectiveness of three prospective solutions:

• Increased public-private partnerships
• Excess Cost Cooperative programs (“co-ops”)
• New Funding Formulas

In understanding how COVID-19 negatively affects Fairfield County’s transportation and education systems, WSHU notes that, most often, the suburban tax base does not generate enough funding to sustain itself. The pandemic presents the opportunity to re-imagine ways to fund local communities by exploring solutions to these longstanding problems.

This investigation by WSHU will conclude late May. The broadcast series will then be presented alongside data-visualization and in-depth articles on the WSHU website, in addition to online audience engagement via interactive platform Voycer and a moderated online panel discussion at Sacred Heart Community Theatre.