Waterbury Mayor and Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) President Neil O’Leary and New Haven State Sen. Martin Looney don’t always agree. But on tolls, regionalization, and special education funding, they find themselves supporting the same causes.
That agreement was apparent on the latest episode of WNHH’s “The Municipal Voice.”
The mayor and the State Senate president pro tempore discussed everything from tolls to education, and, for the most part, the two were on the same page.
Looney came right out and said that Connecticut needs highway tolls. “It is going to be essential for us to have tolls,” he said, “if we are going to deal with Connecticut’s infrastructure needs.”
“I have always been in favor of tolling for all the reasons Senator Looney very correctly points out,” O’Leary said, asking only that those funds go directly to a “lockbox” for infrastructure spending.
Along with new tolls, Looney suggested that the state provide some relief on the gas tax, since Connecticut residents spend more on gas within the state than do through-state travelers. This might go far enough to alleviate the fear of installing tolls on state roads, he said, because Connecticut drivers will see relief at the gas pumps in exchange for better infrastructure.
The two politicians also agreed on shared services and regionalization.
Looney said probate court districts are a model for how the state’s many different school districts could share services. Any town below 40,000 residents should “presume it’s going to be a part of a regional probate district […] and we should use the same assumption in reorganizing Connecticut’s school districts,” he said.
Looney congratulated O’Leary for an initiative the mayor undertook to help students displaced from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and O’Leary shot right back that Looney was a big part of that initiative.
The two agreed as well on special education. O’Leary noted that larger cities like his have been equipped to handle special needs students, which is why Waterbury is working with Watertown to help four special needs children. For smaller towns, one child can drastically change the entire budget for the city.
Looney brought up one change that he is trying to get to help cities. Right now, a town has to spend four-and-a-half times the per-pupil expenditure before receiving help from the state for special ed. Looney plans to introduce a bill to reduce that to two to two-and-a-half times the per-pupil expenditure.
O’Leary said CCM’s membership includes 168 of 169 municipalities in the state. When there are small towns, big cities, rich and poor, he said, it’s hard to get everyone on the same page. “But,” he said, “we have people mostly on the same page.”
The population for regional management is far too low. It should be 65K. I can stand tolls but the gas tax is no offset if residents are paying full tilt and the state is littered with toll booths for which democrats salivate. Most of use at most a tank of gas a week. Chopping ten cents off the 44 cents in state taxes will save a driver exactly $2 - and that my friends, may get you through one toll or maybe not even one.