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Politics & Government

Three Local Legislators, One Town Hall, and the State Budget

New Canaan's legislators respond to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's proposed budget.

A basket of cookies beckoned those who wanted something to crunch while a trio of New Canaan’s Republican representatives crunched numbers.

State Rep. (R-125), State Sens. (R-26) and (R-36) held a town hall meeting in New Canaan last meeting last night. They offered their take on Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s , which they said doesn’t do enough to cut spending and keep taxes in control.

Neither of the three laid blame for the state of the state on the Democrats’ doorstep. Rather they attributed the $3.5 billion budget gap to decades of overspending and overreaching by state government. Something both the recent Republican governor and Democrat controlled legislature were responsible for, Hetherington said.

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“This mess was truly a bi-partisan effort,” Hetherington told the nearly 40 people attending the PowerPoint presentation.

State spending grew from $1,509 to $5,364 per person from 1987 to 2011 according to Office of Fiscal Analysis.

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“The bottom line is we’ve been growing the state budget far too aggressively for the past 30 years,” Frantz said.

The number of state employees has risen 25 percent since 1987. The state employs 46,000 people. The largest private employer is United Technologies with about 21,000 employees.

“Rhode Island has the Ocean state on their license plate. Pretty soon we’re going to have the government state on our license plate,” Hetherington said.

The three legislators said Malloy should consider consolidating more agencies, putting Bradley Airport into a quasi-private receivership, instituting a hiring freeze on the number of state employees, and keeping the myriad of proposed new taxes in check.

Boucher said the GOP caucus would offer a detailed counter proposal in the next few weeks. She said a major problem with Malloy’s proposed budget is it relies too heavily on assumptions. For one, it assumes there will be about $2 billion in concessions from state employees. And while Boucher said she thinks Malloy will succeed in getting some of those concessions, Frantz and Hetherington weren’t so optimistic. In fact, Malloy has told state employees to prepare for layoffs.

The three also said Malloy’s budget depends too much on increased taxes to close the $3.5 billion budget gap.

The budget proposes 58 percent in new revenue. That would come from several sources, including the elimination of the sales tax free week, increasing the sales tax to 6.35 percent, increasing the gas and diesel taxes to 28 cents gallon, a 10 percent corporate tax surcharge, and a $25 driver’s license renewal fee.

None of that is necessary, Boucher said citing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget that reduced spending by two percent without raising taxes.

The proposed taxes will hurt a fragile economy, Frantz said.

“We have the highest state and local taxes per capita. We are the most burdened people,” Frantz said pointing to a slide. According to figures from the Office of Fiscal Analysis and the US Census Connecticut has the highest  state and local taxes per capita at $7,007, the second highest unfunded pension liability, and the fourth  highest state debt.

Even so, there are some positive things in the budget such as Malloy’s insistence that the state stop borrowing to pay for operational expenses and his steps toward education reform and transportation issues.

“If anyone is filled with doom and gloom tonight don’t go to bed depressed,” Frantz said. “We have proposed our Common Sense Commitment to Connecticut. We are hoping to get bi-partisan support.”

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