How the Governor’s Budget and State Legislative Session Could Affect Fairfield County

Now that the 2026 legislative session has officially started and Governor Ned Lamont has delivered his State of the State address, we wanted to highlight some of the ideas, proposals, and actions that could affect southwest Connecticut. 

Additional Funding for Schools—Particularly Free Breakfast

Lamont proposed spending $12.5 million to provide all public school students in the state with a free breakfast. In addition, the proposal would eliminate reduced-price lunch charges, meaning any student who qualified for a reduced-price lunch would get lunch for free.

“A healthy breakfast provides kids with the opportunity to start the day ready to learn and thrive, and too many of our young people do not have access to this basic life necessity,” Lamont said at his State of the State. “Breakfast plays a crucial role in kids’ ability to focus and excel in the classroom. Every child, regardless of their family’s income, should be able to start the day with a healthy meal.”

The proposal is currently being considered by the legislature’s Appropriations Committee.

Some districts already provide their students with free meals. For example, Norwalk offers a free lunch program, which was saved in fall 2025 thanks to additional funding from the city and the McChord Foundation. Bridgeport provides free breakfast, lunch, and snacks to its students as well. 

In addition, the budget calls for an overall $95 million increase to the state’s Education Cost Sharing program, the main way school districts get state funding. The projected overall amounts for communities in our region include:

• Bridgeport: $212.8 million
• Darien: $540,830
• Fairfield: $1.13 million
• Greenwich: $1.02 million 
• Norwalk: $16.45 million
• Stamford: $22 million
• Westport: $610,000

Ideally, any additional funding could help offset some of the funding challenges many districts around the region faced last year. 

Banning Phones in Schools

We previously reported on how districts are stepping up to regulate phone use in schools as a piece of legislation to ban phones in school statewide stalled out last year. 

“Connecticut was a leader in getting these phones out of the classroom. Let’s go one step further—no phones bell to bell in any of our schools, and let’s work with our neighboring states in requiring that no child under the age of 18 has access to these dangerous apps without parental permission,” Lamont said. 

The move would put Connecticut among more than a dozen states who have some type of phone ban during the school day. 

Experts have said that phones have impacted students’ attention spans, caused mental illnesses to skyrocket, and have even led to self-harm. 

“Evidence of an international epidemic of mental illness, which started around 2012, has continued to accumulate. So, too, has evidence that it was caused in part by social media and the sudden move to smartphones in the early 2010s,” Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and one of the leading experts on this issue, wrote in an article for The Atlantic. “Many parents now see the addiction and distraction these devices cause in their children; most of us have heard harrowing stories of self-harming behavior and suicide attempts among our friends’ children.”

Continued Push for Transit-Oriented Development

We’ve taken you in and around many train stations across southwest Connecticut, many of which have mixed-use housing projects under construction. In Lamont’s address, he continued to advocate for housing around public transit, specifically highlighting New London and the Naugatuck Valley communities for their work in this area. 

“Have you visited New London? They have added more new homes in the last five years than in the last fifteen years,” he said. “The Naugatuck Valley is booming—more housing alongside more frequent rail service and new train stations. The poster child for transit-oriented development. Focus on housing next to train stations and busways. We are finding much less need for cars and parking, less traffic, and less cost to you.” 

Right now, Stamford, Norwalk, Fairfield, and Darien have active TOD projects going on around stations in their communities. 

Limited Funding for Transit

But while the governor emphasized housing around train stations, his budget did little to improve transit services. CT Mirror reported that the budget includes an increase of $19.7 million for rail and $9.4 for buses, with a goal to “keep their operations flat.” The budget does not include any additional fare hikes. 

Each day, thousands of residents around our region rely on trains and buses for their commutes. 

Follow Along with the Session

While we’ll be keeping an eye on what’s happening during the state legislative session, CT Mirror offers detailed reporting on many of the legislative actions—and inactions. Their legislative session page is a great resource to understand what’s happening at the state level.