Comptroller Candidate: Don’t Tax Yale, Hospital

New Haven doesn’t need to tax Yale to get the financial help it needs. It can tax restaurant meals and hotel rooms instead.

So argued Kurt Miller, a Republican seeking the state comptroller’s job.

The Republicans endorsed Miller for the post at a May convention. He now faces challenger Mark Greenberg in an Aug. 14 primary. The winner faces incumbent Democrat Kevin Lembo in the Nov. 6 general election

The comptroller writes the checks for the state government and offers regular independent reports on the state’s finances. Miller is promoting his success as Seymour’s first selectman — three years of voter-approved budgets with no tax increases — as proof that he has the financial know-how to offer needed official guidance. (One smart move: His town anticipated state cutbacks before they happened, and built them into the budget.)

In an interview Tuesday on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program, Miller detailed what he’s learned running his hometown and plans he has for the state if he’s elected. He also diverged from a position his primary opponent took in an earlier ​“Dateline” interview: whether cities like New Haven should get state permission to tax large not-for-profits to recover millions lost on tax-exempt property. Greenberg said they should. (Read about that here.) The conversation with Miller on that subject follows:

Miller: I don’t think that the universities or the hospitals should pay any new taxes. Having kids in Connecticut that can meet the demand from the companies for these jobs — If we start charging taxes to these universities …

Let’s use Yale as an example because we’re right here in New Haven. Maybe kids are not going to come to New Haven, not going to stay here in Connecticut. They’re going to go to other schools; perhaps they’re getting better opportunities. I just don’t think it makes sense to ask for more taxes.

WNHH: So you think Yale, which has a $23 billion endowment, which gets students from all over the world, most of whom don’t stay here — that if they had to pay a few million more in taxes, we’d have fewer people going to Yale and staying in Connecticut?

Maybe Yale’s a bad example. Let’s use UNH as an examaple.

These universities and colleges bring kids into the communities. These kids rent . They buy food. They use services. They bring money into the economy.

Wouldn’t they have to take more kids in to meet a higher tax bill? Wouldn’t we get more of those kids?

Potentially. But is the university able to do that? Do they have the capacity with classrooms, professors? You know, bringing in more kids, it sounds easy on its face. But what is the actual cost to bring in more kids?

What about the governor’s argument that big hospitals have fund balances, which are otherwise called profits, sometimes in the tens or hundreds of millions; executives get paid a lot. Why shouldn’t they pay taxes the way other businesses do?

They provide services a lot of times to people who don’t have the means to do that. A lot of these hospitals don’t turn people away at the door.

The hospitals get creamed on Medicaire and Medicaid.

If they have a strong management team to make that hospital run effectively and efficiently, they should be paying those folks an appopriat e wage. They provide a service to the community that goes much beyond..

More than half the property in [cities like New Haven] are tax exempt by order of the state. You’re saying: You can’t tax those people. [And] we’re not going pay you back the 70 percent in Payments of Lieu of Taxes [PILOT] that we promised you. What are cities supposed to do? Do you think the state should increase PILOT payments?

You know ​‚that’s a tough question honestly for the cities. The state needs to be doing things to help the cities provide opportunity. There’s different things that the cities can do that benefit the cities may not benefit the towns.

If the city of New Haven wants to add 1 percent, as an example, of a sales tax to hotels and restaurants and entertainment, why should they not be able to do that?

If you look at that 1 percent, that’s $1 on a $100 dinner. That’s not going to change a family from going out to dinner. It’s not going to change a businessperson from coming in to to New Haven to rent a hotel.

But it will cause your party to go ballistic and charge that Democrats are once again taxing the hell out of everybody, of their hard-earned money. …

Well no, if you’re giving the towns and cities the choice. I’ for giving the towns and cities the opportunity to decide what’s best for them. I don’t like when Hartford dictates down to the towns and cities.

So you would support enabling legislation?

Yes.

Is it fair that in order to compete with suburbs, cities would have to make up for not getting their state-promised dollars for tax-exempt property by having to charge more than their suburban competitors for customers [through more taxes]?

I would argue that the towns outside of cities are not getting the same benefit of the mass of people that live in the city. We’re in a very tall building. There are no buildings like this in Seymour. These buildings are getting taxes. I would argue there are more opportunities for tax revenue in cities.

You know towns don’t get all that they’re promised either. But we’re able to manage our money a little bit better. We’re able to make ends meet at the end of the day.

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full interview with Republican comptroller candidate Kurt Miller on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear a previous interview with Republican comptroller candidate Mark Greenberg on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program; click here to read a story about that interview.