Legislators To Chamber: Infrastructure Bucks Should Boost Buses, Trains

State legislators at Thursday's virtual forum.

Better buses. Frequent train service. Affordable childcare. And tax cuts … maybe sales, maybe property, maybe both.

New Haven and Hamden state legislators cited those goals Thursday morning while discussing the arrival of federal infrastructure and pandemic-relief dollars, during part one of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce’s 2022 Regional Legislative Forum.

The hour-and-a-half-long virtual conversation was held online via Zoom, and featured more than half a dozen state legislators, including New Haven State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney, Hamden State Sen. Jorge Cabrera, and Monroe State Sen. and Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly, among others. The focus was on legislative priorities for the coming short” legislative session that begins Feb. 9 and ends May 4.

Again and again on Thursday, state legislators returned to the question hanging over both state and local governments alike during this time of unprecedented federal largesse: What to do with the surge of federal aid making its way to Connecticut?

In addition to the already-enacted American Rescue Plan Act and some potential version of the Build Back Better bill, much of Thursday’s talk was dedicated to the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill signed into law in November by President Biden. Connecticut expects to receive around $5.4 billion from that package, and it plans to compete for more than $100 billion in additional grants also open to other states.

This is an incredible opportunity with all the funding coming to Connecticut,” local Chamber of Commerce President Garrett Sheehan said. He asked Looney: How do we use this money so that it really makes a big difference in Connecticut?”

Looney and Cabrera identified several priority areas for spending some of this federal aid:

• Improvements to the bus system so that people commuting from New Haven to manufacturing and retail jobs in the suburbs have easy and convenient access to work. In some census tracts in New Haven, 45 percent of residents don’t have cars, he noted. And commuting patterns have changed” over the decades, with more New Haveners commuting to North Haven for work than the other way around. The state needs to make sure that bus schedules and service line up with those commuters’ needs.

• Subsidies for family access to childcare to ensure that moms in particular who have been pushed out of the workforce because of the high costs of childcare are able to get back to work if they so choose. The need for childcare, which is so expensive in so many cases that it undermines the incentive to work” is of paramount importance to address, Looney said.

• Support for placing more high school seniors in internships and apprentice programs. Looney said that Germany has long been the model of linking people in schools with jobs” when they graduate, and Connecticut needs to double down on investing in that type of school-to-job pipeline.

• Asked for a specific shovel-ready” project he’d like federal infrastructure aid to support, Cabrera pointed to improving the Waterbury train line, which is run by Metro North and which connects Waterbury to Bridgeport and New York City.

We know what we should prioritize,” Looney said. We do have more resources now, with the federal infusion of funds, to attack these problems.”

Sheehan also asked Looney and Kelly about tax relief,” given the state’s fiscal largesse and rainy day fund. Is that something Connecticut residents should expect in the legislative session to come?

Kelly said a top priority of his caucus will be pushing for a cut to the state sales tax — namely, dropping it from 6.35 percent to 5.99 percent. This is something that we can do fast,” he said. It can give relief to everyone. You don’t have to own property. You don’t have to claim a credit. It’s something every family in Connecticut can take advantage of and will help in this high inflationary” time.

Looney said that a sales tax cut is not off the table. He said certainly the sales tax issue could be looked at in combination with other things.”

The tax relief he wants to focus on, he said, is in regards to property taxes.

He pointed to the governor’s proposal to restore and expand property tax credits against the income tax.”

I think we do need to look at property tax relief since that is the tax that people find the most burdensome,” he said.

And asked about whether or not this year’s legislative session will take place in-person or online again due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Looney said it’s still too early to tell because everything’s so volatile.”

We have to be very careful,” he continued. I think that the very beginning [of the session], we’ll be operating in a way that relies upon virtual presentations. I hope we will be able to open up” to in-person meetings as the session progresses. It really is too soon to tell.”

Kelly said that the legislature should make it a top priority to meet in person this year. It is the people’s government,” he said. We need to make it more accessible to them.”

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