State an also-ran in Race To The Top

Hartford - Connecticut came up short again Thursday in another competition for federal funding, and partisan disagreement continued to grow, as Democratic lawmakers at the state and federal levels questioned the Republican governor's efforts to bring home funds for which the state could be eligible.

The latest frustration had been expected: Connecticut's $193 million application was not among those approved for the first round of grants in the federal Race To The Top program for public schools.

That rejection comes on the heels of others that have irked Connecticut's congressional delegation, state legislators and Gov. M. Jodi Rell, especially the state's exclusion from recently announced grants for transportation infrastructure projects.

Growing concern about the state's recent track record in winning federal funds eventually triggered a conference call last week among the seven members of the state congressional delegation and Rell, Sen. Joseph Lieberman revealed on Thursday, in which members of Congress and the governor tried to air out differences over the state's approach to competing for federal grants, and to restore lines of communication among the Republican administration in Hartford and its representatives in D.C.

"The governor said ... 'If you think for some reason we're not doing as much as we should be, let us know and we'll work together,'" said Lieberman, who added that members of Congress had "been concerned about some of the failures to receive funding for Connecticut in some of these grant programs."

"If I summarized it, I'd say that she said she needs as much money as she can possibly get from Washington because of the state's difficult budget situation," Lieberman said of Rell. "And we said that the federal government has its own difficult budget situation, and we would try to do what we could to help."

Another congressional source with knowledge of the conference call said it had been an "honest and frank" discussion, and that members of Congress had pledged to help the state government's efforts but called for more communication and cooperation from the Rell administration.

"If they need help and advocacy, they just need to let us know what they're doing," the source said. "These applications for different programs have to be done in a competitive way, and right now the state's applications haven't been."

The administration has disputed that its application for Race to the Top funds, which was driven down to Washington by an aide and her fiance in time to meet the deadline, was rushed or insufficient. And on Thursday, Commissioner Mark McQuillan of the state Department of Education said the agency was optimistic it could craft a winning grant application for the federal program's second round.

"We look forward to receiving comments from the U.S. Department of Education as to how we can strengthen our application and will resubmit for the second round of funding in June," McQuillan said in a written statement.

Spokesmen for Rell did not respond to requests for comment on the conversation with the congressional delegation but released a statement from the governor calling the Race to the Top rejection "disappointing but not unexpected" given the competitiveness of the application process.

Those involved in the crafting of the state's application "recognized from the beginning both the intensely competitive nature of the 'Race to the Top' funding process and the fact that this is only the first round of grants," Rell's statement said. "Today's decision is by no means the end of the process for Connecticut - or, for that matter, the many other states that did not make it past this first hurdle in the race. But it is obvious that we will need to do better - and we will."

But the strain over the administration's pursuit of federal funds is a lingering one.

On Thursday, the co-chairmen of the state legislature's Education Committee, Rep. Andrew Fleischman, D-West Hartford, and Sen. Thomas Gaffey, D-Meriden, denounced the Rell administration's efforts so far and attempted to seize the reins for round two.

The lawmakers said they would propose new reforms that would be likely to win federal funds, including encouraging people to move from business careers into education and to establish new data collection to track the achievement of students.

"Unfortunately, there has been a complete lack of leadership from the Rell administration in this area, so we in the Assembly are stepping in," Fleischmann said in a written statement. "Creating a winning application will require teamwork - and we have assembled a great team of stakeholders from around the state who truly care about education. Together, we will collaborate on a great application that puts Connecticut's children first."

The Race to the Top program will distribute $4.35 billion of the education funds included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Obama administration's stimulus package.

In New London, a local district that supported the state's effort to secure Race to the Top funds but didn't build them into its current budget, schools superintendent Nicholas A. Fischer was "not surprised" that Connecticut did not receive funding.

"There were some clear signals that Connecticut was not going to get it," Fischer said.

The Rell administration's approach to the stimulus funds has already triggered criticism from Democrats - and push-back from the governor's office.

The tension dates to last year, when Rell appointed a "Connecticut Recovery Working Group" to help decide which local projects and programs to put forward for funding under the stimulus.

The working group was productive in its early stages, some members of the task force said, when trying to determine which infrastructure projects were "shovel-ready."

But the task force has held just four meetings, the last convening on April 13, according to minutes on the group's Web site.

"We had a pretty good session or two on infrastructure," said Sen. Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain, "and then once those discussions were essentially finalized, there was very little additional discussion on everything else."

Another member of the task force, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was less charitable.

"I think it was window-dressing to make it appear that the governor and some of the state agencies were gettitng broad-based input as to how they were going to go after federal funds," the participant said.

"That rhetoric about taking as full advantage as possible of the funding streams that were directed to Connecticut ... it appears that we didn't take full advantage," the participant said.

"We fell down. I went in with low expectations, and those expectations were exceeded."

The minutes for the final meeting of the working group say it ended with remarks from Matthew Fritz, the special assistant to the governor in charge of implementing the stimulus.

"Because the Legislature is in session and due to the demands of the current stimulus funding project priorities, we will let you know when and where the next meeting will be," the minutes from last April state.

The group has not met since.

t.mann@theday.com