CCM recently conducted a survey on the impact of state budget proposals on municipalities statewide. Towns and cities are leading the way in finding efficiencies, cutting back services, working with public employee unions to find cost savings, freezing or eliminating positions, and grudgingly raising taxes. As of April 7, 2009, 121 municipalities responded to the survey. Further responses are anticipated.

Below please find a chart featuring respondents to date that answered yes to the following questions.

Budget Reduction Measures:	Have you taken, or are about to take, the following measure as a result of financial problems?	If the Governor’s proposed budget were adopted, what, if any, additional measures do you believe your municipality would have to take for FY2010?	If state aid were cut 10-15% from the Governor’s proposed budget, what, if any, additional measures do you believe your municipality would have to take for FY2010?
Raise property tax	n/a	70.9%	87.7%
Hiring freeze	60.5%	78.8%	92.1%
Won’t fill some vacancies until the budget permits	70.8%	77.5%	91.9%
Positions eliminated (including through attrition)	51.7%	64.2%	81.2%
Layoffs	37.8%	53.2%	80.6%
Spend from reserve accounts/fund balance	n/a	70.1%	82.3%
Cancelation or deferral of capital projects and acquisitions (including cancellation of projects already authorized and funded)	53.8%	71.3%	90.0%
Elimination of programs	36.7%	54.7%	73.2%

• 68.1% of respondents (77 municipalities) have approached their unions for concessions during these difficult economic times. Over 258 unions have been approached statewide. To date, at least 62 of these unions have agreed to concessions, many of which included salary freezes, or zero wage increases. Many are still in negotiations. According to discussions with municipal officials, the unions that have mostly rebuffed concession talks on a systematic basis are the teacher unions.
• 79.3% of respondents (92 municipalities) have made changes concerning salary or benefits of at least some non-union employees, including increased health benefits contributions; zero percent wage increases or salary freezes; furlough days; or smaller wage or COLA increases than past years. Several municipal chief elected officials have forgone their own pay increases and at least one has taken a 10% pay cut.

Municipalities are on the front line of service delivery and are leading the way in finding efficiencies, cutting back services, working with public employee unions to achieve cost savings, freezing or eliminating positions, and grudgingly raising taxes. Municipalities are operating very tight budgets. In fact, 70.9% of respondents (73 municipalities) will likely increase property taxes under the Governor’s Proposed Budget despite all the belt tightening. 87.7 % of respondents (93 municipalities) agreed that if state aid was cut beyond the Governor’s proposed budget, they would have to increase the property tax even more.

The data is clear: state aid cuts will decimate core services and further increase Connecticut’s overreliance on the regressive and income-blind property tax. Even level funding certain key grants is putting enormous pressure on local budgets.

If you have any questions on these survey results, please contact Barbara Rua (brua@ccm-ct.org), Gian-Carl Casa (gcasa@ccm-ct.org), or Jim Finley (jfinley@ccm-ct.org) at 203-498-3000.