Laura Glesby photo
Adam Marchand at Monday's full board meeting.
The Board of Alders is working to revive a forgotten commission dedicated to advocating for more funding for the city.
The commission in question — the Commission on PILOT/Revenue Lobbying — now officially has its first member in a long time, Westville Alder Adam Marchand.
Alders unanimously voted to appoint Marchand to the commission at their full board meeting on Monday evening.
The commission appears to have been created by a 2005 ordinance, with a focus on the state’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) reimbursements for state-owned and certain privately owned property that is untaxable at the local level. Its stated mission, as outlined in the code of ordinances, is to “encourage the Connecticut General Assembly to provide significant additional funding of the PILOT program, mobilize various statewide organizations affiliated with its members, and enact other legislation that will benefit the city.”
Two decades later, in 2025, state funding for PILOT reimbursements has substantially increased, especially after a 2021 change championed by State Sen. Martin Looney that more than doubled the state’s PILOT payments to New Haven. Currently, the grant is funded at 53 percent for “Tier 1” cities including New Haven, according to Kevin Coughlin, the communications director for state senate Democrats.
Marchand, a chief steward of the Local 34 Yale union, also serves on the City Plan Commission and chairs the alders’ Finance Committee.
He explained after Monday’s meeting that his experiences leading the Finance Committee motivated him to take the lead on revamping the PILOT commission. “I see a lot of what the city could do if we had more resources,” he said, pointing to life-sustaining resources such as food assistance that would ideally receive more funding.
Marchand said that over the summer, he plans to research the commission’s history and learn more about why it ceased to meet, what purpose it served in the past, and what role it could play in the future. “How do we attempt to grapple,” he said, “with the fact that a majority of our property cannot be taxed?”
This year, more than 56 percent of the city’s assessed real estate value— or $10,132,855,885 in total — cannot be taxed.
According to the code of ordinances, the PILOT commission should include “all members of the Connecticut State Senate and the Connecticut State House of Representatives residing in New Haven” — as well as a representative each from Albertus Magnus College, Yale University, Yale-New Haven Hospital, St. Raphael Hospital, the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Greater New Haven, the Greater New Haven Central Labor Council, Community Labor Alliance, two alders, and four members of the public appointed by the mayor.
According to Marchand, any members of the public interested in joining should contact himself ([email protected]) or the general contact for interest in boards and commissions, Alex Guzhnay ([email protected]).