Not happy with your Property Taxes? Call your State Representative!

Unfunded Mandates from Hartford are a major problem for us here in Fairfield.

In case you missed it, the cover story in Barron's on August 25th ranked Connecticut as the worst-managed state in the nation in terms of its outstanding debt and unfunded pension liability relative to its GDP. Needless to say, ranking as the worst state in the union in national publications is not going to attract or retain a lot of businesses, jobs or residents.

 The underlying huge problems with taxes, debt and unfunded liabilities must be addressed before they provoke a crisis that will severely limit our options.  And if these highly visible state-level problems are not enough to make you wonder about how long you and your family should stay in Connecticut and about the future value of any property you own here, there is another big problem that hits us even closer to home – Hartford continues to pile more and more unfunded mandates on towns like Fairfield, driving our local property taxes higher and higher.

An unfunded mandate is a state law that requires a town to pay for something that it was not previously doing or to pay more for the services it wants to provide, in response to which it has only two options: either raise property taxes or cut other services, like patrolling neighborhoods, plowing roads or responding quickly to 911 calls.

According to the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, a state-wide, bipartisan association of towns and cities, there are currently over 1,200 unfunded or partially funded mandates; information on all of them is available on its Web site.

Some of the most egregious examples of forcing Fairfield to pay more than it would otherwise have to pay are the following: 

•  “Prevailing Wage Rate” is a law that requires towns to pay inflated wages on construction projects over $400,000 for new work and over $100,000 for renovation projects even if there are reputable contractors who are willing to do the work for substantially less.
• “Minimum Budget Requirement” is a law, believe it or not, that says education budgets cannot be reduced even if enrollment declines, even if efficiencies are found, even if savings are achieved, even if there was a surplus the year before.
• “Compulsory Binding Arbitration” is a law that requires Fairfield to accept the judgment of an arbitration panel when the town and its public employees can’t agree on the terms of a new contract, even though the members of that panel are not accountable to our tax payers; a town’s legislative body can reject an initial arbitration award, by a two-thirds vote, but then the award of the second arbitration panel is final and binding.

Ultimately, the problem with unfunded mandates is one of Transparency and Accountability. 

In its ceaseless, relentless creation of more and more programs year after year, the state Assembly should not be allowed to shift the economic burden of what it is doing onto Connecticut’s towns.  If Hartford wants to create a new program or expand an existing one, then it should figure out how to pay for it with state revenues.   Not doing so denies voters the transparency they need to evaluate whether their state representatives are serving them well, and to hold them accountable.

What can and should be done?

As a candidate for the State Assembly in District 133, I believe we can solve this problem.  If elected, I will advocate for the following:

1.  Review and eliminate or reform all existing unfunded state mandates

2.  Ensure that estimates of any unfunded-mandates costs are accurate

3.  Require two-thirds majority in Assembly to enact any new unfunded mandate

4.  Reform “Binding Arbitration” to give towns the right to reject any and all arbitration awards by a two-thirds vote of their legislative bodies 

5.  Eliminate “Prevailing Wage Rate” restrictions on municipal projects

Any reform efforts will be much more productive if a majority of Connecticut voters decide on November 6th that one-party rule for 36 of the past 40 years may have been great for those lucky enough to secure government employment, but it sure has not served the rest of us in our towns and state well. 

Chris DeSanctis is a candidate for State Representative in Connecticut’s legislative district 133 on the eastern side of Fairfield. He works as an elementary school Principal and Adjunct Professor at Sacred Heart University. To learn more about Chris, visit his website at www.chrisdesanctis.com.