The citizens group hoping to reform Connecticut’s oppressive property tax system will release its recommendations Monday, hoping to force candidates for state offices to take positions during the final push toward Election Day.

The Connecticut Citizens Assembly on Property Taxes declined a request from state Comptroller Sean Scanlon to withhold its proposals, which members teased would require bold action and political courage, until after the election.

“Bringing out ideas like this now is a good vehicle for conversation,” assembly member Bob Bailey of Vernon, a finance director, said Tuesday, adding that voter concern about Connecticut’s affordability makes the report particularly timely.

Organized by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, Yale University and the University of Connecticut, the 100-member assembly has been working since early July to better understand the only major levy cities and towns can raise.

Cities and towns here generated $12.5 billion via property taxes in 2022, about $400 million more than state government raised through its largest revenue engine, the income tax, according to the Department of Revenue Services’ last major tax analysis.

But state government also leans on many other taxes. It generates billions annually from levies on retail sales, business earnings, real estate transactions, utilities, cigarettes, inheritances and certain cash gifts.

Unlike the income tax, though, the property tax is regressive, meaning its rate is not adjusted to reflect a payer’s earnings or wealth. Critics say it disproportionately burdens middle-class families and small businesses, stifling economic growth and creating wide disparities in the quality of schools and other services communities provide.

According to the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, only New Hampshire and New Jersey relied more heavily on property taxes than did Connecticut in 2021.

Assembly members were tight-lipped in early September about specific reforms under consideration. But they warned the group was eyeing bold proposals, not small reforms unlikely to make much impact.

How candidates react to these ideas could tell voters a lot, said James Farrell, an East Haven accountant and assembly member.

“Their input is valuable on how they’re going to address it,” he added.

Comptroller says tax reform ideas should wait until after elections

But state Comptroller Sean Scanlon said there’s a downside, as well, to rolling out bold reform ideas now.

“I just am not sure it’ll get a fair hearing” in the final two weeks before an election, he said, adding that home stretch of many campaigns generates heavy rhetoric, distortions and exaggerations.

The assembly had planned to report in late September, but a Nor’easter that struck the state Sept. 26 forced the group to cancel a key meeting and push its schedule back.

Still, the citizens’ group has spent months crafting solutions, the comptroller added. “I want what’s best for them and for their ideas to be taken seriously.”

But the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, in cooperation with Yale and UConn, organized the assembly and its schedule specifically so members could use their ideas to challenge political candidates if they chose, CCM Executive Director Joe DeLong said Monday.

Scanlon, who is seeking reelection and supporting fellow Democrat Ned Lamont’s bid for a third term, said he did not have discussions with gubernatorial campaigns about delaying the assembly’s proposals.

Lamont holds double-digit leads in recent polls over GOP gubernatorial challenger Ryan Fazio, who has centered his campaign on charges the governor has allowed Connecticut to unaffordable for many households.

A spokeswoman for the Fazio campaign, Hannah Lemek, said the Republican nominee would welcome a chance to discuss the assembly’s new property tax reform proposals.

Taxpayers “are pleading for help,” Lemek said. “They’re telling us what they need, and so we need to listen to them.”

Lauren Gray, spokeswoman for the Lamont campaign, also said it didn’t seek to delay the assembly’s report.

“The governor looks forward to reviewing proposals from Citizens’ Assembly once they are released,” she said.

Created using lotteries to assemble a broad, cross-section of residents, the panel was allowed to govern itself completely, DeLong said, adding he nonetheless agrees with the assembly’s decision to release proposals soon.

The state’s heavy reliance on property taxes “has befuddled elected policymakers in Connecticut for generations,” DeLong said. “We owe it to these [assembly members] to give them a reaction, a response. I think it actually helps democracy.”