Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced that if state legislators can’t get it together, he’ll take matters into his own hands.

Today, the governor said that if no budget is passed soon, he will revise his executive order, shifting state education funding from more affluent towns to the 30 lowest-preforming district — shielding these towns from cuts.

That’s great news, for places like Bridgeport, Norwalk, Waterbury, Hartford and New Haven, but even better news would be the legislature coming together to pass an actual budget.

The Connecticut Mirror has the story:

“Saying the cuts are too deep for the 30 lowest-performing districts, referred to as Alliance Districts, Malloy said he is preparing to revise his executive order to shield those towns by imposing larger cuts to better-off communities. The order already had eliminated all education aid for 34 municipalities.

“If this is going to drag on, then quite frankly some of those assumption will have to be adjusted to reflect the constitutional requirement in respect to education,” he said. “The executive order, like other documents, is a living document that needs to reflect the situation as it evolves … There will be a recognition that these are the districts that we clearly need to fund and, in my opinion, need to send additional dollars to, and not fewer dollars to.”

Malloy’s decision to use his executive order to implement his own education funding formula comes as a landmark school-funding lawsuit heads for the Connecticut Supreme Court. Last fall, a Superior Court judge ruled that the way the state is funding its public schools is irrational, and therefore unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on that case on Sept. 29.”