MAYORS OR WHINERS?

Democrat Betsy Paterson, the mayor of Mansfield, is also president of the Connecticut Conference of Munipalities (CCM). A few days ago, she addressed the legislature's budget-writing Appropriations Committee to make CCM's annual pitch for state aid for cities and towns.

Give Paterson some points for candor. She acknowledged that many lawmakers sarcastically refer to CCM as the "Conference of Crying Mayors" because municipal officials always seem to be pleading for more state dollars. "Some call it whining," said Paterson, "but to view local officials as another constituent group crying out for more money is to severely misunderstand the function of local government in delivering services."

Paterson also urged lawmakers to reject the notion that mayors and selectmen seeking state aid want the money to burnish their own political images. "State actions to help communities shouldn't be viewed as being to the benefit of elected officials of cities and towns, but as helping the entire state."

Last year, lawmakers patted themselves on the back for approving significant aid for cities and towns, but CCM's executive director Jim Finley said the two-year state budget was "front-loaded." That is, more aid was offered in the first year, while the second year spells trouble. "Levels of state aid are insufficient to meet the growing costs to cities and towns," Paterson said.

CCM claims Republican Gov. Jodi Rell proposes virtually no changes in statutory formula grants important to municipalities. They say factoring for inflation, Rell's aid offering to cities and towns amounts to a 1.4% increase.

So local officials are appealing to the Democrat-controlled legislature to do better than Rell, and they offer some suggestions on how to help:

● increase state aid for public education.
● increase state contributions to town aid road funds and the so-called Pequot-Mohegan grants tied to revenues from the casinos.
● boost funding for various PILOT programs (payment in lieu of taxes), which is state reimbursement for public facilities such as colleges, hospitals, and state property in towns that can't be taxed locally.

Local officials also urge the legislature to do something meaningful about skyrocketing local property tax rates. However, CCM remains staunchly opposed to Rell's proposal for a cap on annual increases in the local property tax. CCM calls that concept "an artificial contrivance" that attempts to stem rising tax rates with an unwieldy "one size fits all" control.

That prompts a key question. If mayors and selectmen agree the property tax is a burden, but they don't want Rell's tax cap, what is their alternative remedy? The response: more regional cooperation to reduce the cost of local government.

CCM asks lawmakers to create incentives for the voluntary creation of new councils of government in each of the 15 planning regions in Connecticut. CCM says this will push municipal officials to get together on a regular basis to strategize on issues of mutual concern such as economic development, land-use planning, and joint delivery of services.

A more controversial idea is a suggestion for the state to grant towns leeway in the use and collection of taxes including some revenues belonging to the state. For example, local officials would like the state to consider sharing a portion of the state sales tax with municipalities if they agree to regional cooperation.

In government, each level, Congress, the state legislature, and municipal government, tends to protect its own interests. So revenue sharing as suggested by CCM will be a hard-sell. Legislators who could have a tough time balancing the state budget in an economic down cycle (such as the one we may be entering) will be very protective of the revenues they need to get their job done.

In her remarks at the State Capitol, Paterson urged lawmakers to get past the hackneyed stereotype of "crying mayors" and take action to help out. She said municipal leaders aren't appealing to the legislature hoping to "get someone to bail them out—it's because the needs are real and have a direct impact on the people of the state."

Municipal officials best hope for added funding this year is that 2008 is an election year for state legislators. Lawmakers will be on the streets of their districts campaigning this summer and fall, and surely will want to point to the state aid and state bonding they've secured for the hometown folks.
 

Posted 3/03/08

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