nothin You Call This “Harmless”? | New Haven Independent

You Call This Harmless”?

The governor’s proposed budget,” in the words of New Haven’s mayor, leaves communities like New Haven with more bad choices.”

Mayor John DeStefano has been saying that, and more, about Dannel P. Malloy’s new two-year budget proposal for more than a week now, joining other Connecticut mayors in breaking publicly with a governor who until now had been their ally.

DeStefano made that pitch again Thursday in testimony before the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, chaired by two people with sympathetic ears: New Haven state Sen. Toni Harp and state Rep. Toni Walker.

Click here and here for two stories with background on the issue.

Here’s what DeStefano said to the committee Thursday:

Thank you for opportunity to comment on the Office of Policy and Management (OPM) Budget and categorical municipal grants. 

I sympathize with the difficult decisions this committee has before it. In New Haven we are accustomed to making those tough decisions. In the past five years we have made many difficult decisions. We have had to lay off cops, librarians, recreation supervisors and school custodians. Our employees have gone without cost of living pay raises. And our property tax payers are paying more. With all this bad news there has been good news – in the past two years we have successfully negotiated union contracts that have fair benefits that match the private sector and have stabilized pension and health care costs – and have the potential to be less as more contracts are settled. We have also grown jobs and the grand list – next year we will see almost 1% growth in the net taxable grand list.

I come before you today because the Governor’s proposed budget leaves communities like New Haven with more bad choices. Let’s be clear – the governor’s proposed budget does not hold municipalities harmless. The proposed budget reflects a cut in general operating municipal aid — cuts to PEQUOT, the Municipal Revenue Sharing Account and a variety of other programs– over $10 million of general fund reductions for New Haven. What does this mean. This would be over a 2 mill or 5% tax increase or would result in over 200 position eliminations. This could mean less police and fire fighters, fewer libraries and youth programs – and after last week’s snow nobody will want to hear this – but it could mean cuts to the public works department which is already half the size it was ten years ago.

The governor talks about the elimination of the car tax because the tax is regressive. I argue that cuts to municipal aid are far more regressive. Cuts to state aid will ultimately lead to property tax increases – disproportionally in communities like New Haven where property taxes are far too high already. 

Over the next several weeks this committee will have many difficult decisions to make. I respect the work that you do and ask that you remember that the proposed changes to municipal aid will result in the loss of general fund operating support and result in either cuts to services or property tax increases.

Thank you for your time.

Tags:

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.


Post a Comment

Commenting has closed for this entry

Comments

Avatar for One City Dump

Avatar for Brutus2011

Avatar for Bumbershoot