New Haven Independent

New Haven & The State Budget: What’s At Stake?

by Patricia Dillon | June 25, 2009 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The public debate over Connecticut’s looming budget issues has employed familiar symbols: a Republican governor who claims to oppose taxes, a Democratic majority advocating for aid to towns and opposing cuts to programs for the poor.

But less discussed, and buried in the details of Governor Rell’s budget, are a number of program changes that, together, would have a disproportionate, and negative, effect on New Haven. Below is a short list of some of those Rell proposals.

Suspending the Historic Home and Structures Tax Credit

Rell proposes saving $10 million by suspending this credit altogether, at the same time retaining the tax credit for film production at $30 million.

While, ironically, CT Voices for Children has calculated that much of the economic benefit of the film credit goes to out of state production costs, there is no dispute about the historic credit.

In addition to the benefit of upgrading housing stock and providing livable homes and neighborhoods, every carpenter, painter, roofer, or general contractor restoring these structures lives right here in Connecticut, mostly self employed small businesses.
And those contractors live largely in the New Haven area.

From 2000-2008, 48 percent of the projects qualifying for the historic home credit were in a New Haven city zip code (but pipeline projects and pent up demand are not included here). While the cost of that tax credit from 2000-2008 has been $4.8 million, the total project costs for New Haven projects so far were over $20 million, without even calculating the multiplier effect of job creation.

For now, the Democratic budget retains this credit. But its impact on New Haven is so great, that we need unity - and allies - to keep it if Governor Rell vetoes this first budget.

St Raphael’s Hospital

As of February 2009, St Raphael’s employed 4,200 people and is a major provider of health care and jobs for New Haven. But it faces a deficit.

The Rell budget provides no relief. In fact, one remedy — to use stimulus dollars to raise rates for St. Raphael’s to equal the same level Yale gets — is foreclosed by Rell, because she has used stimulus dollars to plug budget holes and avoid more tax increases. This strategy undermines the point of the federal stimulus.

The Democratic budget includes a SAGA waiver that can provide some relief to all hospitals with large General Assistance populations. It isn’t specific to St Ray’s, and doesn’t go as far we’d like.

But it’s an important start, and critical to New Haven health care and jobs.

Westville Village

Westville Village Renaissance has made important advances in economic development. They became certified by Connecticut Main Street, and are working on strategies to strengthen Westville businesses, all of whom pay taxes and employ local people. Rell eliminates the core operating dollars for WVRA.

STRIVE

STRIVE provides career counseling and job training for New Haven residents. It is best known for its work in prison re-entry. But as it approaches its tenth anniversary, STRIVE has broadened its mission to include soldiers returning from Iraq who are struggling to find a job.

The Rell budget wipes out STRIVE’s state subsidy, which leverages private dollars.

Solar Youth

Solar Youth works with inner city youth on environmental education, and has also proved to foster leadership skills.

Based in the West Rock area, it serves young people citywide, at Barnard School and in Fair Haven.

Last year, Governor Rell rescinded new dollars to enable Solar to do fundraising and become more self reliant. This year Rell proposes cutting all state funds to Solar.

New Haven Boys and Girls Club

The Rell budget eliminates the “Neighborhood Youth Center” line item, which includes $1 million to Boys and Girls Clubs statewide.

New Haven’s portion of that line item is a critical part of their operating budget, one which enables them to leverage other dollars.

FIMR

The total state allocation for FIMR, community-based prevention of infant mortality, is $300,000 — the same as the average cost of caring for a low birth weight baby on Medicaid. The Rell budget eliminates the program entirely. The Democratic budget - for now — restores it.

EMS Council of South Central Connecticut

EMS Councils serve thirty towns and work with first responders - police and fire - at times of crisis. When this region faced an anthrax crisis, it was this council that coordinated work among the first responders. It also tests EMS providers for recertification. Although the towns contribute in some regions, the South Central Council has no access to carry over funds.

As of July 1, the South Central EMS Council will be out of funds due to the budget standoff.

The budget is still a fluid document, but most of these programs are restored in the budget to be voted shortly. But demands from some Democrats and the Governor’s budget office to further cut the budget means every one of these — and more — are at risk going forward.

With articulate human service agencies making the case for statewide issues, and a city government aggressive about its own wish list, local agencies risk being overlooked. But their impact is great.

This narrative does not include cuts to Junta, to libraries, a proposed 1% cut to nursing homes, or proposed cuts to CMHC, which provides psychiatric care to the mentally ill in the community. It does not include changes to HUSKY or medication for the mentally ill.

But it does provide a glimpse of what the “cuts” proposed mean for the New Haven economy.

There’s a lot at stake.

Pat Dillon represents the 92nd General Assembly District.

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Comments

Posted by: East Shore resident | June 26, 2009 8:08 PM

Thanks for such a good update. The last line makes me wonder what else is still in question (HIV outreach). I don't think we can afford not to support such programs. Some of us can afford a more progressive tax structure!

Rep. Dillon - thanks for your leadership and voice. I feel fortunate that you and your colleauges (Harp, Holder-Winfield, Looney, Walker to name a few)

Posted by: Rep. Pat Dillon | June 27, 2009 1:49 PM

East Shore
Thanks. We do have a good delegation.

The numbers on the historic tax credit were a shock. 48%! But caveat - that measures percent of the number of projects, not per cent of total dollars. There may be a smaller number of historic projects in wealthier areas with a higher price tag. We need to research that further.
But the credit provides jobs for contractors in construction in addition to improving our housing stock. On Westville projects, those contractors may (and do, I know them) live in Orange, Bethany, Shelton, Woodbridge, East Haven, but they do hire New Haven people.

Good point on AIDS. We've been pretty solid on that against odds but in a year like this everything is at risk.

Many people frame the question of funding nonprofits as if it were a frill or a charity. That's a very narrow view.
If you look at New Haven's job base, it's nonprofits.
Defunding these services removes an important service component that will not be picked up by a for profit company. In some cases it may prevent higher costs down the road, unless we start turning people away from emergency rooms.
Beyond that, all those non profits all provide jobs.

Posted by: Elephant Talk Coventry | June 28, 2009 11:30 AM

PLAYING POLITICS WITH YOUR MONEY DEMOCRATS DELIVER A FAILURE
Opening remarks with silly statements and nonsensical assertions are normally expected followed by the announcement Live From New York it's Saturday Night, but in Connecticut last night the comedy we heard was Democrats rationalizing their budget. The joke was the recently passed budget proposal that has taken months of stalling, preposterous pandering and media circus press conferences from the Democratic leadership to put together.
The Democratic leadership knew when the proposal was made and the vote was taken it was only a sham. It is not only an insult to the voters of Connecticut but a waste of taxpayer's dollars to plan failure intentionally only to play politics. The Democrats wasted months without voting on Governor Rell proposed budget offered in February and failed to offer their own proposal during the normal legislative session. Instead they rang the register for themselves and increased spending for the taxpayers with a special session to do the work they refused to perform in a timely manner. In the real working world most of the taxpayers perform in that would be grounds for termination of employment.
Now after their vote for a budget we hear from Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., D Brooklyn, "we begin earnest negotiations with the governor, starting tomorrow". Yes, apparently he is admitting that even he knew the budget would not be acceptable. There can be only one conclusion for the taxpayers to draw he was only playing politics on our time and with our money.
The first move in the "earnest negotiations" should be for every Democratic member of the General Assembly to announce they will be working for the people during this forced special session without pay and without reimbursement of expenses for food, travel or lodging. It is time they took their jobs as seriously as the working men and women of Connecticut do on a daily basis to support our government with the hope it will perform to high ethical standards with the needs of all people coming before the individual in elected office or their special interest groups of supporters.
Governor M. Jodi Rell was again realistic and candid when she commented on the budget vote while preparing a veto, ""It is quite simply unbalanced, unaffordable and unfinished," said Rell. The governor has been critical of the proposal for raising taxes and fees by 2.5 billion dollars while not having "real spending cuts".
Governor Rell addressed the state in January when she spoke with the common sense of our founding fathers saying, "As families struggle to pay their monthly bills, so will we. As they cut back on expenses and forego new purchases, so must we." The Governor was forthright and compassionate when she said, "Government must shrink because our taxpayers are seeing their personal budgets shrink. The recession has landed hard on the doorsteps of many of our citizens and they are looking to us for relief. They expect us to work together to bring new approaches to the table - because that's what leaders do."
Governor M. Jodi Rell is a leader worth listening to and following she has support from the people of Connecticut she has proven time and again Connecticut is lucky to have M. Jodi Rell at the helm.

Posted by: Rep. Pat Dillon | June 28, 2009 5:38 PM

Elephant Talk,
This post outlines the Governor's budget impact on New Haven programs.
When this was written, it was not clear whether all of those programs would be funded by the Democratic alternative. The post does mention the Democratic budget, but the emphasis is more on the New Haven impact than on leadership press conferences.
Therefore, your comment is a bit confusing because it doesn't really respond to that. Instead, it responds to somebody else's statements. Actually, at first, given the capital letters and all, it looked like spam.
However you did say some things that deserve a response.
1. "The Democratic leadership knew "
Do you know what they knew? Perhaps you do know the motives of the Democratic leaders. I don't. I don't know Gov. Rell's motives either. All I can do is look at what they produce. In any case, imputing motives to others does not help move the ball down the field.

2."without reimbursement of expenses for food, travel or lodging"
Give up reimbursement for food and lodging? Absolutely yes. That's easy to give up. I'm not reimbursed at all. Never have been.

Glad you like Gov Rell, though. I like her too. We agree on a lot of things, and disagree on others.

Posted by: Hmmmm | June 29, 2009 1:35 PM

Pat this is a great update, I must say I'm quite impressed. Is it election time? What have/can/will you do as our state rep to make this situation a little bit better for your constituents? Any ideas as to what we can do?

New Haven & The State Budget: What’s At Stake?

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