State and Local Leaders Address Delivery Tax
by Christine Stuart | April 9, 2008 5:35 PM
Posted to Local Politics
| State Capitol
Republican Senators held a press conference early Wednesday morning to reaffirm their opposition to the new delivery sales tax proposed by the Democratic majority to fully fund PILOT, a grant to cities and towns for tax exempt property.
Local officials from New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford, and New London held a press conference Wednesday afternoon to offer their support for the proposal’s goal of fully funding PILOT.
Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Southport, said the Democrats created a new tax which will harm the same small businesses that they started out the session saying they would help by repealing certain taxes, like the business entity tax.
McKinney also wanted to know why local officials have their hands out asking for more money when last year the General Assembly passed a budget with “historic increases in municipal aid.”
“Where did all the money go?” McKinney asked. He said any municipality where 35 percent of the local budget comes from state aid should be audited. “Bridgeport’s mayor can’t even tell you how many employees he has,” McKinney said.
Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch said McKinney was “absolutely right our cities are not managed as well as they should be.” He also noted that he controls just half of the budget, the rest is managed by the board of education, which will be conducting an audit, but does not report to the mayor’s office.
New Haven Mayor John DeStefano was quick to step to the microphone and announce he has 4,980 city employees. He also noted that New Haven, Hartford, and Bridgeport combined contain 50 percent of the state’s affordable housing stock and house most of the states sex offenders, ex-offenders, and drug addicts.
DeStefano said the debate was not about state aid. “It’s about working families paying higher taxes on their homes.” He said he doesn’t want to cut services or raise taxes
Speaker of the House James Amann, D-Milford, said he likes the goal of the proposal, however, “whether it sells is the big question.” Amann said he’s going to let Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven, address the Democratic caucus next week regarding the issue.
“I think it’s a darn good idea in a robust year,” Amann said. He said last year it may have passed, but the downturn in the economy is driving the debate this year.
Sen. President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, said his caucus was not sold on the delivery sales tax just yet, but “I’m not going to say its dead on arrival.” However, he did say he doesn’t think it has a tremendous chance this year.
But there still may be hope for the big city mayors.
James Finley, executive director of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, said the state underestimated the proceeds from the sale of abandoned properties. He said he expects the state will bring in close to $90 million, when its budget estimated $40 million. He said the state could take the $50 million in additional revenue and put it toward PILOT grants to cities and towns.
The amount of revenue the delivery sales tax was expected to bring in was about $59.7 million.
Comments (6)
Posted by: Gary Doyens | April 9, 2008 7:44 PM
The state forks over 50% of the cost to operate the City of New Haven. Two years ago, it was 52% - the only reason the percentage is going down is because the mayor spends it faster than it can come in. At this rate, DeStefano needs to have two legislative sessions each year so he has enough opportunities to demand more money for his sorry management of city finances.
In less than two years, Mayor DeStefano has escalated spending by record setting amounts - $35 million in one year, more than $20 million this year. He may know how many employees he has, but he hasn't bothered to bid out the health insurance of those employees in anybody's memory, and he's dragging his feet in joining the pool of muni- workers Nancy Wyman's office is trying to round up to create a larger buying pool to drive down healthcare of taxpayers.
What these big city mayors do, is have their hands out every year..every year they get more than the year before, and it's never enough. DeStefano and his cronies can't find enough things to tax to give them all the money they want. Even his half baked plan for a sales tax in the City of New Haven would hurt the very families he gives lip service to protecting.
This delivery tax should be canned; the sales tax canned; and any new idea for new taxes in the state where we pay among the highest tax in the nationshould be canned as well. Manage what you have well before asking for more. If the mayor did that, he wouldn't darken Hartford's door for years. Enough is enough.
Posted by: facChek | April 9, 2008 9:11 PM
There he goes again, DeStefano shouting off his mouth in rapid succession.
He has 5,131 employees, not 4908 as reported here. But this is not a first of his fabrications.
How does he verify that three cities have 50% of the states Affordable housing. It's reported in New Haven that the medium sale price in greater New Haven exceeds 293,000 is that affordable?.
Rents are exceeding 50% of income, is that affordable?
This guy is crazy drunk on his own rhetoric.
Donald Williams, don't give him a dime until he justifies his expenditures in New Haven, which he says will be a 10 Million deficit, if the state does give in to his demands.
Make him prove it....!
Posted by: Hartford Johnson | April 10, 2008 3:09 PM
Why don't we do FOIA requests of the city of New Haven to get to the bottom of the situation?
Whoops... John's counsel really likes to fight those.
Posted by: robn | April 10, 2008 9:46 PM
The 4980 employee figure for New Haven is very interesting because New Haven has a population of about 124,000 and that makes 4016 employees for every 100,000 residents. According to this linked paper, the national average in 1997 (last census data) was 3,634 per 100,000.
Accepting this figure, and scratching my head about the supposed belt tightening over the past years, I wonder how NH ended up 10% over average?
http://urban.nyu.edu/research/littlefield/section2.html
Posted by: True New Havener | April 11, 2008 2:31 PM
Robn,
I would think the reason is that New Haven as a small city with lots of poor families has more children in public schools and thus more employees (teachers, etc). I would suggest comparing New Haven to similar cities when asking your question. My guess (and it is a guess like yours) is that you will not find any real discrepancy.
As to the other comments here -- well let's be honest if there was a hurricane in Japan, Gary Doyens would blame taxes in New Haven and DeStefano specifically for the winds.
Posted by: cedarhillresident | April 14, 2008 9:28 AM
Gary I love alot of your comments...and learn from most of them.....but True New Havener is right. We take all the unwanted of the state and they need to back us up!! I give the mayor and his staff for stepping it up this year! They have made a big stand in Hartford...much more than in previous years. And with any luck a few things they are fighting for will make it though.