As the General Assembly moves into Special Session it is not too late to protect local governments and their property taxpayers.

• Maintain At Least Present Levels Of State Aid: The major state budget proposals (the Governor’s I & II, Appropriations/Finance, and legislative Republicans) were in broad agreement on levels of municipal aid – for ECS, Special Education, PILOTs and more (see over for budget comparisons). About 120 municipalities have already adopted local budgets based on those figures, and many have no clear legal capacity to change their mill rates once they’ve been set. Cutting state-aid levels now would result in severe budget disruptions and, in many places, new or additional layoffs.
• Allow Municipalities To Re-Open Their Budgets To Account For Federal ARRA (Stimulus) Funding. Many municipalities had already adopted their budgets by the time it became known that 14% of ECS funding would go directly to school districts – so they still have a legal obligation to send everything they appropriated to the districts. That would result in a 14% loss of expected ECS revenue, crippling town budgets.

• Repeal, Or Delay Imposition Of, Burdensome Mandates, including:
  • in-school suspensions, set to take effect 07-01-09;
  • juvenile justice/raise the age legislation, set to take effect 01-01-10;
  • FOI web-posting requirements (an amendment, drafted by the chairs of the GAE committee would provide this relief while also allowing municipalities to publish legal notices on their websites, instead of in a newspaper ); and
  • Repeal the mandate that municipalities collect and store the belongings of evicted tenants.
• Enact a statutory prohibition against the enactment of new unfunded or underfunded state mandates without a 2/3 vote of both chambers of the General Assembly.

• Allow municipalities to increase fees they charge up to the amount it costs to provide the service. Many municipal fees are set by state statute and have not been updated for quite some time.
• Make permanent the present rates of the municipal Real Estate Conveyance tax.
• Provide distressed municipalities and regions the ability to raise additional, non-property tax revenue, such as by utilizing a piggy-back hotel tax.

For more information, please contact Jim Finley (jfinley@ccm-ct.org), Gian-Carl Casa (gcasa@ccm-ct.org) or Ron Thomas (rthomas@ccm-ct.org) or call (203) 498-3000.

SEE ALSO: CCM begins airing radio message on Monday June 15, calling on the State to help - not hurt - Hometown Connecticut during Special Legislative Session

Major State Grants To Towns and Cities:
Four State Budget Proposals At A Glance

Bold =	Where proposals differ, this is the best for towns and cities and their property taxpayers.
* =	As much as 14.34% of this amount (approximately $271 million) is expected to be supplanted by federal ARRA State Fiscal Stabilization Funds and go directly to Boards of Education
** =	The Governor’s Second Budget Proposal reduces this grant by 10%. The proposal states, “additional ARRA funding for Title I and Special Education (IDEA) will (in the aggregate) more than offset reductions in education funding for students who are disabled and/or disadvantaged”.
+ =	As part of combined “municipal block grant”, funded with state bonds.
++ =	State bond funded
# =	The Governor’s proposal would only fund regional health districts and would decrease amount of grants to regional health districts. The Appropriations/Finance proposal would fund a per capita grant of $1.85 for “full time health departments that serve at least 50,000 people and for districts that serve three or more municipalities”. No funding would be provided for part??time health departments under the Appropriations/Finance proposal.
## =	Not all details available, but $50 million in bonding would be available for regional projects and $50 million of state sales tax revenue would be segregated for regional incentives.
@ =	The Governor’s Proposal would require towns with resident state troopers to pay 85% of the cost of resident state troopers (rather than the current 70% paid), and a portion of fringe benefits associated with resident state trooper overtime. Towns currently do not pay fringe benefits associated with resident trooper overtime. Rell’s proposal would thus result in a $3 million cost increase for towns over this year’s baseline figure.