Despite a Senate Democratic plan to pump $700 million in sales tax receipts into communities over the next two years to relieve property taxpayers, municipal leaders took aim Wednesday at another of the caucus’s key initiatives: a mandated expansion of workers’ compensation for police and fire-fighters.
Connecticut Conference of Municipalities
Posted inMoney
Behind The Numbers podcast — Episode 5: The Budget and Municipalities
Connecticut Mirror budget reporter Keith M. Phaneuf discuss the state budget and its effect on Connecticut cities and towns with Matthew B. Galligan, Connecticut Conference of Municipalities president and South Windsor town manager.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Would state sales tax hike really translate into local tax relief?
The fate of a major proposed expansion of Connecticut’s sales tax may not hinge solely on the objections of businesses and consumers. The key question could be whether cities and towns — the prime beneficiaries of these potential sales tax receipts — would use those funds to lower property taxes or to expand local spending.
Posted inMoney, Politics
CT municipalities fear they may finally take a budget hit
After being spared the state budget axe again and again since the Great Recession, leaders of Connecticut’s cities and towns are fearful their perfect track record may be at risk. Though they suffer no major cuts in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed new budget, municipal leaders see legislators – who are scrambling to plug other holes in the governor’s plan – eyeing the $3.2 billion municipal aid package hungrily.
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Municipal leaders upset with Malloy’s distribution of state aid
Municipal leaders say Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed budget will reduce non-education state grants for about a third of Connecticut’s cities and towns in the next fiscal year, and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities is calling on the administration to make sure all municipalities are “held harmless” in the budget.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
A storm rages over CT’s stormwater
Managing the water that flows into the thousands upon thousands of storm drains around the state — an otherwise standard municipal function — has become something close to a standoff between the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and a battalion of those municipalities.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Governor would cancel some town aid, other grants to close this year’s deficit
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wants legislators to cancel $12.7 million owed cities and towns and withhold another $24 million earmarked for biomedical research, open space and historic preservation activities to reduce this year’s budget deficit.
Posted inPolitics
Looney: Glaring car tax disparities must be closed
State budget problems have blocked recent efforts to repeal Connecticut’s car tax. But even though a big deficit is forecast for next year, the Senate’s top leader says the state at least can act now to fix the car levy’s greatest flaw – a huge gap between urban and suburban tax rates.
Posted inEducation, Money
Panel: Empower towns to raise revenue, control special ed costs
Expanding municipal taxation options, encouraging communities to share costs regionally and reforming special education topped House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey’s new plan Thursday to bolster local and state budgets.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
Malloy, GOP hold cards close in deficit showdown
The partisan debate over the state budget deficit might best be described as a poker game — in which neither side will show their cards.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
Malloy may run afoul of his pledges whether taxing or cutting
Governor Dannel P. Malloy faces plenty of critics who argue he can’t balance the next state budget without breaking his campaign pledge not to raise taxes. But Malloy will be equally hard pressed to close next year’s $1.3 billion-to-$1.4 billion deficit with spending cuts, given the many pledges and fiscal principles he has espoused since taking office four years ago.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Are CT cities and towns no longer immune from state budget axe?
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy spared cities and towns from the state budget axe as he grappled with deficits for much of the past four years. But with sales tax receipts promised long ago to municipalities still lying in the state’s coffers, GOP legislative leaders are worried the Democratic governor’s days of sparing local taxpayers are over.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Foley, Malloy, vie for municipal leaders’ support
Connecticut’s gubernatorial contenders battled Tuesday for the support of local mayors and first selectmen, pledging to preserve municipal aid and to ease pressure on property taxpayers.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Towns plead for more aid to fix deteriorating roads and bridges
Recent increases in state funding for municipal road and bridge repair haven’t been sufficient to reverse decades of shrinking assistance, or to prevent the steady deterioration of local infrastructure, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities reported Thursday.
Posted inPolitics
South Windsor manager to lead CT Conference of Municipalities
South Windsor Town Manager Matthew B. Galligan was elected Tuesday as the new president of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.