I think I’ll just read news articles from the last paragraph backwards. Such a treasure trove of info. In today’s Advocate, Brian Lockhart reveals that Fairfield County Dems are not happy with the current budget being proposed by their leadership. They shouldn’t be happy, the budget as proposed raises taxes on many and gives us bacon bits back. It would be one thing to send that money back to Fairfield County so that infrastructure and services could be improved here, but no, Hartford prefers spending Fairfield County money on Meriden and New Brittain, despite Stamford recently displacing New Haven as the third largest city in the state. From the Advocate:
Freshman state Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, broke from many of his colleagues yesterday and said he planned to vote for the tax package.
Morris believed the income tax cuts and the earned income and property tax credits would benefit his constituents, many of whom live in lower-income neighborhoods in South Norwalk.
He said raising income taxes on households earning more than $250,000 “is an appropriate level.”
“(Those) people have more of the means to help others throughout the state,” Morris said.
But what else can we say about Morris. Mommy Morris isn’t wild about the budget either, Branford too gets soaked for tax increases and gets oyster crackers back.
The rest of the delegation weighs in:
State Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, said “a meaningful number” of his constituents would see their income taxes lowered.
“But there’s also a very meaningful number above the threshold,” Tong said. “People in Stamford make $100,000, $150,000, $250,000. These are people who get on the train every day. Working people struggling to hold onto their jobs, their homes, to plan for college for their children. They barely save any money. These are Fairfield County’s working people.”
State Reps. Gerald Fox, Carlo Leone, James Shapiro and Christel Truglia, all D-Stamford, said they have similar concerns about the proposal and were voting no or considering voting no.
Truglia said she thought this would be the year that the legislature would alter the formula used to divvy up education aid among cities and towns. Officials in municipalities such as Stamford and Norwalk, with high property values, say they are disadvantaged by the formula because it assumes they do not have some of the same financial challenges as Hartford and Bridgeport.
“But the ECS (educational cost sharing) formula wasn’t changed and we’ll be sending quite a bit of money to Hartford and not getting anything in return,” Truglia said.
McDonald agreed. He said the income tax increase would raise about $61 million in additional revenue from Stamford alone.
“That’s an extraordinary figure,” he said. “And I can’t support that without a massive overhaul of the education cost sharing (formula) and a slew of other statutory funding formulas.”
State Rep. Chris Perone, D-Norwalk, who, along with Shapiro, is a co-vice chairman of the legislature’s Finance Committee, said leaders altered the income tax proposal and found some extra money for schools.
But Perone said he has trouble backing a tax hike without a finalized budget.
“How do you do that?” Perone said.
Right, how can the Dems pass a tax increase without even knowing what the budget requires? Insert usual statement about adopting GAAP here.
The Stamford delegation also took a hit when their proposed boating saftey bill got waylaid over an amendment to repeal the gas tax pushed by the house GOP. The details:
A bill sponsored by the Stamford delegation to improve boater safety is in limbo after getting caught in last week’s General Assembly debate over lowering the state gas tax.
Earlier this session, Stamford legislators submitted a proposal to penalize boaters that do not yield or slow down near emergency vessels with flashing lights and blaring sirens. Sgt. Peter Wolff, a supervisor in the Stamford Police Department’s marine unit, requested the bill.
“It says if you see blue lights, you’ve got to slow down,” said state Rep. Gerald Fox III, D-Stamford. “The penalty mirrors what you’ve got on the road.”
The bill was intended to replace a law that requires mariners to yield to police and fire boats only after being signaled by emergency workers.
The transportation, public safety and judiciary committees passed it unanimously. But the bill ran into problems last week on the House floor when the Republican minority used it as a vehicle for a controversial proposal to waive the state’s 25-cent-per-gallon gas tax for the summer.
House and Senate Republicans a week earlier called on Democrats to lower the gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Democrats said the proposal was a gimmick that would benefit oil companies and cause sticker shock at the pumps when summer ends.
Which is too bad. This bill actually might do some good. Over in the Senate, the repeal of the gas tax passed the Senate. Senate president Don Williams and Majority leader Martin Looney added an amendment to a motor vehicle lemon law. The lemon law passed 35-1 with all 4 Senators from lower Fairfield County voting in favor.
Despite this, it appears unlikely that the House will pass the gas tax repeal.
source: Norwalk Advocate, Area Dems buck leadership on tax plan,
source: Norwalk Advocate, Boating safety bill sinking in gas tax debate,
source: Norwalk Advocate, State Senate votes to approve break on gas tax,
