Case, Miner Participate in Realtor Legislative Evening

Torrington – State Representatives Craig Miner (R-66) and Jay Case (R-63) attended the Litchfield County Board of Realtors Legislative Night on Monday evening. The board hosted the event in order for state legislators to present comment on the state’s political climate.

“It’s our job as legislators to make this state attractive in order for the realtors to have a consistent clientele base, but our economy is certainly not helping people make the choice to live here,” noted Rep. Case, “We have not made the structural changes necessary in our budgeting processes, which has been exemplified by the failed mitigation package that was approved by the majority party in December. This is a prime example of the patch-work efforts to balance a budget that are crumbling the state’s fiscal stability,”

The governor called the legislature into a deficit mitigation session in December of last year. The democratic controlled legislature passed a mitigation package to immediately reduce appropriations for state programs and transferred money from special funds and accounts to the General Fund to address the projected deficit for FY ’16.

“The budget passed last June has been out of balance since late July and the Majority Party in Hartford has shown little interest in making substantive changes in spending ,” said Rep. Craig Miner in light of a newly projected $72.9 million deficit for the current fiscal year, despite the passage of the mitigation package, “The hard working men and women in the real estate industry are right to be concerned about the potential of this administration increasing fees and taxes on real estate transactions. I will not support changes that make an already though market even more so through efforts by the democrats to increase fees.”

The new projection was provided by the state’s non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA). According to OFA, $26.8 million of the deficit is related to lower-than-expected revenues.

The deficit will be addressed in the upcoming legislative session, which is slated to begin on Wednesday, February 3rd.

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