Common sense prevailed when the General Assembly voted this month to waive penalties for this year under the Minimum Budget Requirement for municipal funding of local schools.

While Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has said he "doesn't get it," we do. A town and its school system that have acted in good faith to cut their budget to a level that (a) takes into account reduced state aid and (b) does so without dropping below the Minimum Budget Requirement — essentially, last year's level of local funding — should not be penalized because subsequent state "holdbacks" change the math.

The MBR is a prime example of what happens when laws and regulations grow old on the books instead of being updated to reflect changing circumstances.

The measure to suspend penalties this year was contained in a bill introduced by General Assembly leaders of both parties and passed in a lopsided vote. The governor's signature is required for the bill to become law and the penalty to be lifted. He should sign.

MBR has been the stick in a carrot-and-stick strategy by the state originally intended to ensure that towns getting increased Education Cost Sharing funds in a given year would not use the increase to offset a cut in the town's own contribution. It's meant to sustain the level of local spending and, by extension, the caliber of the schools.

In this year of education funding cuts rather than increases, MBR tripped up Montville, Groton and four other municipalities. Municipal spending plans, including the amount budgeted by a town to pay for education, had been calculated before last summer's delays in adopting the state budget and subsequent, deeper cuts in state aid.

The ECS funding amounts originally planned in the state budget stayed on the books but a portion was held back — permanently. The Malloy administration eliminated $58 million in ECS funds midway through the fiscal year when the legislature left it up to the administration to find savings.

The governor had opened the budget year with a proposal to redirect ECS funds to poorer school districts with comparatively low student achievement, and to reduce funding to wealthier districts, especially those with declining enrollments. His plan, which also included a restructuring of special education funding, served as the start of a discussion about fair and adequate education funding that is badly needed. But it is also part of a complex discusssion about equal educational opportunity that legislators weren't ready to touch. For much of the year officials also awaited a ruling from the state Supreme Court on a lower court's directive to restructure public school financing. The Supreme Court struck down the ruling. Broad-scale reform, which could readily proceed without a court-ordered mandate, went back on the shelf.

MBR is just one out-of-date aspect to Education Cost Sharing arrangements, as the governor rightly recognized. The law has been tinkered with a few times but remains basically intact. To invoke MBR penalties mid-year, when the state could not keep its own end of the bargain, put local school systems in the middle of a policy failure that is beyond their control.

As written, the law allows school systems to request an exemption from MBR — to lower their local spending — by demonstrating declining enrollments. Although fair, that dodges the question of widespread declines that need to be recognized in state-level spending, and it totally misses the problem that cropped up when the state failed its own commitment.

Groton solved its budgetary obligation this year to the satisfaction of the state Department of Education, which administers MBR. Montville protested to the education department when told the town must pay a penalty of twice the amount by which its budget failed to meet MBR. That would have been $355,012, now waived. 

The one senator and three state representatives who represent Montville were right to join in objecting. The waiver of the penalty, if signed by the governor, should free the town to use its education money for education.

Education funding reform still awaits, however. The current, archaic funding system fails students, schools and towns.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.