Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal
Responsibility
Mission
The mission of the Connecticut Municipal
Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility is to:
Enhance lines of communication
between and among local municipal, finance, and education officials on issues
affecting them before the Legislature.
Educate and advise members of
the Connecticut
Legislature and Executive branch as to the significant challenges posed to
local government by State actions past, present, and contemplated.
Advocate for legislative
changes to permit Connecticut
communities to live within their means without negatively impacting needed
services, education, and property tax rates.
Facts
Municipal budgets are built to
meet taxpayer demand for services and to comply with state and federal
mandates.
Local communities rely upon
property taxes, fees, and state aid to fund their operations. While all 169
towns and cities rely upon local property taxes to finance public services
including education, less affluent communities also receive significant
revenues from state and federal sources sometimes reaching well over 50% of
total local expenditure.
Statewide, about 65% of local
budgets are funded by property taxes.
The bulk of local school and
municipal expenditure is for salaries and benefits.
Almost all school capital
projects are partially funded through state reimbursement for a portion of
bonded debt.
The
Challenges
In Congress
The Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, (IDEA) funding was committed at 40% of local
expense when the law was enacted in 1976. Nationwide the current funding level
is under 20% and under 6% in Connecticut.
Funding for the No Child Left
Behind initiative is approximately half that initially determined as necessary
by the Executive and Congress.
In the Connecticut Legislature
The State has a chronic
structural operating deficit. The Hartford Courant reported on December
8, 2004 that the governor’s office is forecasting a $1.3 billion shortfall in a $14.3 billion budget for fiscal 2006. It
also reported that the entire $240M projected surplus for 2005 comes from
approximately $400 million in one-time revenues.
State funding for mandated
programs is far below the amounts promised when the mandates were imposed.
Examples include: PILOT reimbursement, IDEA, ECS, Pequot-Mohegan grants, and
local veteran’s tax exemptions. State funding for mandated programs is not
increasing to keep pace with inflation or mandated increases in expenditure.
Some State revenue sources (e.g., PILOT, Pequot-Mohegan, Town
Aid Roads) have actually been cut in recent years.
Connecticut’s bonded debt is the highest per capita in the nation.
Locally
Districts are not serving
their client populations as well as they are capable. This has been caused in
part by archaic work rules and impediments to the manner of direct classroom
instruction. Similar challenges exist in local law enforcement and municipal
employee segments. Causes include a broadly interpreted and comprehensive list
of mandatory topics of bargaining and last best offer arbitration provisions of
the Municipal Employee Retirement Act (MERA) and Teacher Negotiation Act (TNA).
Local expenditure is growing
at rates well in excess of anticipated revenue. Grand list growth has proven
insufficient to cover increased expense in most communities. In many cities,
grand lists are actually shrinking. Recent legislative changes requiring more
frequent property revaluation have introduced additional uncertainties,
especially in communities with significant commercial/industrial bases.
Most communities have been
forced to propose annual property tax increases. It has become increasingly
difficult to get local budgets approved by voters at levels sufficient merely
to maintain current services
Voter perceptions of
government employees are hardening. Whether justified or not
many local taxpayers believe that municipal employees are very adequately
compensated. Some claim to see salary increases coming more regularly
and generously than in the private sector, that job security is greater, and
that the level of benefits, especially those for health care, far exceed the
private sector norm both in level of benefits and employee cost.
Construction costs continue to
escalate. Contributing factors include additional State mandated changes in
building design that sometimes inappropriately drive up local costs In some communities, capital projects are
either failing at referendum or are being scaled back to fit within available
funding
The
Consortium’s Legislative Priorities
Terms of MERA and the Teacher
Negotiation Act limit the ability of local governments to manage labor expense
within available resources. We request action to modify these statutes to
permit no more than that which the State affords itself, the right to modify or
reject arbitrated settlements that cannot be supported from available revenues.
This would allow local government to live within its means without excess
dependence upon the Legislature. It would also permit modification to
inefficient work rules over time.
Modifications to the
prevailing wage statute to more realistically reflect competitive costs.
A commitment to live within Connecticut’s means:
ü
A statutory prohibition upon
any legislation that would impose new state mandates upon municipalities and
requirements for an impact assessment and funding plan for such proposals.
ü
No new mandates until the
existing ones are funded to the levels promised by the original enabling
legislation.
Who
are we?
The Coalition is an informal group
of local officials supported by a number of regional and statewide membership
organizations advocating for local initiatives.
See the attached list for
details.
The Coalition’s Role
- Develop
and broadcast our common agenda
- Coordinate
lobbying efforts
Your Role
- Educate
yourself on the issues
- Endorse
the Coalition’s initiatives and join with us
- Educate
your legislator
- Volunteer
to provide written and oral testimony at Legislative hearings
- Provide
some financial support for our coordinating efforts.
If you are an
elected member of your local Board of Selectmen/Council/Alderman, Board of
Finance or Board of Education, meet with your counterparts to determine if your
community’s Boards can support the Coalition.. Then email your endorsement to calhemin@sbcglobal.com
with the names and email addresses of your chief elected officials. Your community will be included on our list
and map and we will communicate with you directly.
Connecticut Municipal
Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility
The genesis of the Consortium – a broad
alliance of duly elected town boards from a host of municipalities throughout
Connecticut – comes in response to the growing wave of taxpayer discontent and
local budget defeats we have witnessed over the past couple of years. The rate
of rejections remains high while local property tax rates increase at around 5%
per year. At the same time, overall municipal employment declines and existing
program is squeezed out of budgets in town after town, victims of unbridled
compensation and other state interventions into our local budgetary affairs.
Our focus is primarily on the
cost-management side of the equation.
Our mission is to press for return to the local level of a greater
ability to manage key elements in our own municipal budgets.
The platform planks are all
common threads of the legislative agendas of the three major municipal advocacy
organizations – CCM, COST, and CABE – and call for leveling the playing field
under binding arbitration, raising the cost thresholds on capital projects
under prevailing wage laws, and prohibiting new mandates placed on towns until state government meets its own
existing funding commitments to the towns under current law. Very simply, our
joint message to the Capitol is to untie our hands so that we are more able to
better and more efficiently manage our own local affairs.
These themes reinforce our view that
our cause is pro-local government… pro-education… and pro-taxpayer. Then our
growing group of town boards, and board chairmen, representing a broad and
diverse group of municipalities throughout Connecticut, seeks to deliver a
common message with a unified voice to legislators and the legislature… a
message that truly is across-the-boards…across-the-parties… and
across-the-state.
We encourage the
governing authorities in every town and city - Boards of Selectmen, Education,
Finance, Alderman, and Town Councils - to join us by endorsing the Consortium
effort and by participating in pressing state lawmakers for change.
Has
your town joined with the Consortium yet?
We
may be reached through the following members:
Mike Guarco,
Chairman Mike Zelasky, Chairman George McLaughlin, Chairman
Granby Board of Finance Lisbon
Board of Finance New Milford
Board of Finance
budgetguru06035@aol.com MikeZelasky@adelphia.net geomcljr@charter.net
Richard Burke John Adams, Chairman Cal Heminway, Chairman
Oxford Board of Finance Granby Board of Selectmen Granby Board of Educatiuon
Richard.Burke@asml.com jadams@rizzo.com calhemin@sbcglobal.net
WHAT YOU CAN DO
TO SUPPORT THE CONSORTIUM
EFFORT
Initial steps:
Secure
endorsement from the Boards in your town
Finance, Education, Selectmen/Town
Council
Encourage the BOF Chair, or his designee, to participate in
the development of county-wide associations that will combine to form a
statewide network.
Long-range:
Educate yourself and others on how and why reducing the
slope of the cost curve allows more flexibility in providing program and
reducing tax rate increases.
Meet with your local legislators on these issues and let
them know why change is
important to your town, and
townspeople.
Be an advocate
for the issues:
Take
the message to the Capitol, to your legislative delegation and others.
Testify when the
call goes out on a useful bill relating to our agenda.
Help us to
broaden the Consortium roster by securing support from town boards that agree
with our mission. Their support is very
important and that of the Finance Chair is vital.
If you would like
to become more active, you are most welcome to join
us in reaching out to those in other towns and spreading the message. Please feel free to contact any of those
listed below.
Mike Guarco,
Chairman Mike Zelasky, Chairman George
McLaughlin, Chairman
Granby Board of Finance Lisbon
Board of Finance New
Milford Board of Finance
Budgetguru06035@aol.com MikeZelasky@adelphia.net geomcljr@charter.net
Richard Burke John Adams, Chairman Cal Heminway, Chairman
Oxford Board of Finance Granby Board of Selectmen
Granby Board of Educatiuon
Richard.Burke@asml.com jadams@rizzo.com calhemin@sbcglobal.net
Resolution in Support of the Consortium Group
Whereas, state
interventions into traditionally local budgetary affairs have negatively
impacted the delicate balance between a municipality’s capacity to provide
services and the local taxpayers’ ability to pay for said services, and
Whereas, such
interventions have effectively reduced the municipalities’ ability to manage
major components of a typical town budget, and
Whereas, COST, CABE, CCM and other
municipal advocacy agencies have all traditionally called for repeal or reform
of prevailing wage and binding arbitration laws that currently apply to and
negatively impact the municipalities across Connecticut, and
Whereas, the state legislature in Connecticut continues to
force new mandates upon the towns while reneging on it’s
own statutory municipal aid commitments to said towns.
Therefore, be it
resolved, that said board body in said Town join and support the
CT Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility in its effort to bring about
changes beneficial to the municipalities and taxpayers across Connecticut.
Said changes include:
1) raising the cost thresholds
under the prevailing wage statute from the current $100 K/$400 K levels to
minimally the $1 million level,
2) leveling the playing field
in binding arbitration by allowing an arbitrated settlement, if rejected by the
local legislature body, to then be sent back into negotiations, rather than
directly into the last round of appellate review, and
3) a
prohibition on new mandates upon the towns from the state until the legislature
meets its own funding commitment already existing on the books.
The Towns seek to be better able to live
within their own means, as well should the government of our state of Connecticut.