Posted on February 26, 2019
“The Governor campaigned on structural changes, business-friendly policies, leveraging technology to address systemic efficiencies, regulatory mandate reform, and more. I had hoped to see more concrete plans to structurally reform Connecticut to better serve the essential needs of our residents, before jumping straight to tolls and taxes.
I see the state’s future success being tied to a well-balanced approach that encourages economic and population growth. In my opinion, given our current high-of-cost living status, our highly regulated business environment and the high cost of doing business in our beautiful state, we should not have come out of the box by making Connecticut less affordable. I do not agree with taking more from a diminishing tax base until we can demonstrate our ability and willingness to better stewards of the taxpayer’s tax dollars.
The possibility of $650-million in new sales taxes, the revocation of income tax exemptions on pension and Social Security retirement income and recommendations to toll our roads without offsets will drive up our cost of living. This makes me very unhappy, as I know it will for most my neighbors in Newtown.
That said, I am encouraged by Governor Lamont’s energy and enthusiastic insistence that we get this budget balanced and right. He has made repeated overtures to folks on both sides of the aisle to take him up on his open-door policy to come forward with alternative ideas to make the budget better. In my couple of brief conversations with him, I have found him to be a great and empathetic listener, so I plan to take him up on his offer.
In the meantime, first and foremost, residents of Newtown should know that Governor Lamont’s budget has begun with funding that is ‘as-expected’ by town leaders and me. The issue of sharing the state’s expense of its near-insolvent Teacher’s Retirement System has been proposed again, as it was by Governor Malloy. I plan to work hard with my colleagues to keep the state from pushing the responsibility for its poor management of the fund onto towns like ours, although I am committed to having our state keep its promises to retirees.
First Selectman Rosenthal and I have spoken and we share both a sense of relief that our town was held very much harmless in today’s budget. However, it’s important to also know that we share many concerns about some of elements in this budget, and their potential to have downstream impact on local residents and the state as a whole. We will work together to do what’s best for Newtown and the State of Connecticut.
In the meantime, I am dissecting the budget line-by-line and will continue to do so as a member of the Legislative Appropriations Committee with five subcommittee assignments, including Elementary & Secondary Education, Human Services and Transportation. This is not a final budget…the work is just beginning.”