Politics & Government

State Budget Preserves Funding For Windsor

State Representatives David Baram and Peggy Sayers address the state budget as it pertains to municipal funding.

When the General Assembly convened in January we faced an unprecedented challenge – a $3.5 billion budget deficit and an economy still trying to recover from the nation’s worst recession since the Great Depression.

To put our state back on solid financial ground, Governor Dannel P. Malloy proposed a budget that called for all residents of Connecticut to share in the sacrifice. There are many parts of the governor’s budget that we take issue with. Unfortunately legislators can’t pick and choose parts they like or dislike. Our support for this budget was based upon achieving certain goals such as municipal aid, accomplishing the overall objective of balancing the budget without borrowing or eliminating vital social service programs, and realizing consolidation and streamlining of state government.

So what are examples of things that we didn’t like? We would have preferred a higher graduated income tax for upper end wage earners so that the “pain” was more equitably distributed. We would have kept sales tax exemptions on items like clothing and pet grooming. We would have kept the property tax credit at $500. We would have explored more cuts by eliminating duplication, fraud, waste and proposed more streamlining and efficiencies. We would have eliminated double dipping salaries for retired workers.

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While the governor’s plan was constructed to balance the budget without gimmicks and borrowing, it still needed a lot of work because of the harsh impact it would have on Windsor and its residents. Even though our approach would have been somewhat different, we do give our governor credit for creating a balanced budget and for trying to allocate deficit reduction through the roughly equal reductions of spending, state employee concessions and tax increases.

As an example, Governor Malloy proposed ending the state’s funding reimbursement program to towns for tax credits given to manufacturers. Elimination of the Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) program, however, would have cost Windsor $1,043,076. We met several times with Budget Director Ben Barnes and told him that unless this sum was fully restored to Windsor, that we could not support the budget. We prevailed.

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The governor also wanted to eliminate the $500 property tax credit for homeowners, raise the tax on gasoline and add new taxes on coupons, hair cuts, car washes and other items we take for granted. Once again, we met with the governor’s office to oppose these and other taxes. We prevailed by eliminating new taxes on gas, discount coupons, hair cuts, car washes etc. We helped achieve a revived $300 property tax credit.

Thankfully, after many hours of negotiations, we and our colleagues in the legislature were able to reach a budget compromise with the governor. The end result is that Windsor will not lose any state funding because of the elimination of the PILOT program. Additionally, a $300 property tax credit was retained for residents and the 3-cent gas tax increase and some of the other proposed sales taxes were eliminated.

On top of that, Windsor will receive an increase of $254,716 in municipal aid for fiscal year 2012 and increase of $294,376 for 2013 when compared to the $13,653,957 the town was appropriated in 2011. We kept in daily contact with Windsor’s town manager so that this revenue could be included in Windsor’s budget to help keep tax increases at a minimum. We were happy to see that this continued state aid kept Windsor’s proposed budget increase much lower than surrounding towns.

In addition, for the first time ever, we will have a new Earned Income Tax Credit program to provide financial relief to as many as 190,000 low-income workers in the state. This will help offset some of the tax increases imposed by the governor on necessities such as food and clothing.

In order to achieve a balanced budget fair to all we had to make significant spending reductions. To accomplish that we consolidated 30 percent of our state agencies while maintaining important investments that will help grow businesses and protect families.

The governor also negotiated a labor concession package that is good for taxpayers and the state’s workers. The union agreement, however, fell short of what the governor had hoped to receive in concessions and he will now have to make further budget adjustments. We will press the governor to make up the difference with additional spending cuts and we will oppose any borrowing, cuts to municipal aid or increases in taxes. The same will hold true if the union agreement is not approved.

But if all goes well, the economy continues to improve and a budget surplus occurs, we should look at rolling back some of the tax increases and especially consider restoring the $500 property tax credit.

After three years of economic hardship, we can finally say that our state’s finances are stabilizing and Connecticut is moving forward on the road to economic recovery.

Although the governor’s budget still includes higher taxes – a sacrifice that we all will have to share – we now have a budget that is truly balanced. A budget that does not include borrowing for paying our current expenses. A budget that does not include accounting gimmicks. A budget that does not further defer our pension obligations.

But unlike budgets that were recently passed in New York and New Jersey, our state budget protects our cities and towns and does not pass the burden on to local property taxpayers. As we all know, the property tax is the most regressive of all taxes. In supporting the governor’s budget, we considered the alternative of his plan to eliminate significant town aid, and the resulting property tax increases that municipalities would have to enact to balance local budgets.

There is no question that we had to make tough and unpopular decisions, but in the end our state budget is honest and balanced. Governor Malloy’s budget, while imperfect, will move Connecticut forward. Although it was not our first choice of budgets, creating certainty and transparency, will allow for predictability in helping businesses to grow and residents to plan.

Voting for the budget may not have been easy politically, but given the adjustments we fought to achieve, and considering the alternative plan to slash local aid and critical social services, we believe that it was the right thing to do for the State and our the residents of Windsor.


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