From: Susan Kniep, President
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, Inc.
Website: http://ctact.org/
email: fctopresident@ctact.org
860-524-6501
July 13, 2005
CONGRATULATIONS
MIKE GUARCO
and
The Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal
Responsibility
Mike has successfully assembled officials throughout Connecticut who are
working to reform State Mandates to include Binding Arbitration. Mike and his group have received public
recognition for their efforts and are to be commended for their work on behalf
of taxpayers throughout Connecticut. We encourage taxpayers to urge
their towns to join with Mike and
The Connecticut
Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility. Information on the Consortium
follows.….
READ BELOW AND LEARN
WHAT YOU CAN DO
TO SUPPORT THE
CONSORTIUM EFFORT
By Tom
Breen, Journal
Inquirer, July 12, 2005
After a budget season which saw voters across Connecticut reject
municipal budgets in referendum votes, a new group is planning to lobby state
politicians to change policies that it says lie at the source of taxpayers’
discontent. The Connecticut Municipal
Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility, made up of elected town boards from
across the state, is calling for changes to laws concerning binding
arbitration, the prevailing wage, and mandates from the state government. The bipartisan group, which began last
December and which has earned the endorsement of 60 towns and 75 municipal
boards so far, says towns which previously saw annual budget growth of between
2 and 3 percent now see budgets increase by between 4 and 5 percent a year. "People are rebelling," Michael Guarco, chairman of the group and also of the Granby Board of Finance,
said Wednesday. Budget growth means tax
increases, he said, and this year dozens of towns rejected budgets at least
once in referendums, including rejections in Vernon,
East Windsor, Ellington, Somers, and Coventry. But it isn’t only voters who are frustrated
with the situation, he said. Local officials, who have worked to add programs
and services to towns, have had to reduce or eliminate them in response to
defeated referendums. "Municipal
officials are sitting here watching the demise of local government services
because we have to deal with unbridled compensation," Guarco
said. The goal of the organization is to have at least 100 towns and 150
municipal boards vote to endorse its platform, which it says will give a
unified voice to its concerns that will be hard to ignore at the state
capitol. The group argues that binding
arbitration laws currently favor public employee unions, meaning annual
increases in salaries and benefits that are hard for towns to match. The group
seeks to "level the playing field" when it comes to negotiating
contracts with unions. Additionally, it
wants the General Assembly not to enact any more mandates on towns until the
state legislature provides full funding for the mandates already on the
books. Finally, the group wants changes
made to prevailing wage laws, which require public construction and repair
projects to meet a minimum standard of compensation designed to mirror similar
projects in the private sector.
"That law shouldn’t be on the books," Guarco
said. "It’s a Depression-era anachronism." State labor union officials, though, are wary
of such calls for change, saying they can often camouflage attacks on gains
made by workers. Lori Pelletier,
secretary treasurer of the state AFL-CIO, said Wednesday that such objections
have been brought up before the legislature in previous years, but legislators
haven’t found much substance in them.
"There are a lot of myths out there," she said. "In
binding arbitration, municipalities win more often than unions do. If anyone
should want to change arbitration laws, it’s the unions." Guarco said the
group’s goals, if met, would actually help unions, by allowing towns to hire
more employees. "Because we’re
losing programs and services, we’re losing people," he said. "We’re
not so much anti-union, but we think collective bargaining laws are a big part
of the problem." State Sen. Edith
G. Prague, D-Columbia, co-chairwoman of the state legislature’s Labor and
Public Employees Committee, said today that binding arbitration had been
studied by the legislature in 2004. A
report by the Office of Legislative Research found that arbitrators
side with municipalities in roughly half the cases, and with unions in the
other half, Prague
said. "The process we currently
have is fair," she said. However,
she added that she would be glad to meet with the members of the new group and
hear their concerns.
Voicesnews.com
By: Leda Quirke
June 29, 2005
OXFORD - There's strength in numbers, especially when it
comes to effecting reforms for the economic betterment of the community.
That was the message imparted by Mike Guarco, a spokesman for the Connecticut
Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility, to representatives of boards of
finance, education and selectmen from the towns of Oxford,
Woodbury Naugatuck, New Milford and Monroe.
Mr. Guarco, who
also is chairman of Granby's Board of Finance, was invited to Oxford Town Hall
last Thursday evening by the local finance board to provide information about
the consortium, which was founded in December and now has representation from
60 of the state's 169 towns and from 75 municipal boards.
The consortium's mission, Mr. Guarco said, is to encourage local officials and their
advocacy groups to communicate and work together for common objectives, to
educate the Legislature about common problems and to lobby for legislative
changes that permit communities to live within their means without negatively
impacting services and taxes.
Issues the consortium has identified as
needing reform include the lack of local control over expenditures such as
salaries and benefits and the cumulative impact of unfunded mandates.
The consortium was created in response to
growing dissatisfaction among taxpayers which has been evidenced over the last
few years by the budget defeats in a growing number of towns, Mr. Guarco said.
Its agenda, which is similar to those of
three major municipal advocacy groups - the Connecticut Council of
Municipalities, the Council of Small Towns and the Connecticut Association of
Boards of Education - is to level the playing field under binding arbitration,
raise cost thresholds on capital projects under prevailing wage laws and
prohibit new mandates until state government meets its existing funding
commitments to towns under current law.
Mr. Guarco noted
that town budgets, which through the 1990s increased 2 to 3 percent annually,
have, in the last three or four years, reflected increases of 4 to 4.5 percent.
At the same time, unemployment is increasing
and the level of service is declining.
"In many towns we see program after
program falling from the budget with money going to pay for salaries and new
mandates," he said.
Mr. Guarco
said the consortium, whose membership is concentrated now in the Hartford and
Litchfield areas, is seeking to add to its roster representatives from the
boards of selectmen, education and finance from more towns.
"If cost control is important in your
community, this is a way to pursue it," he told attendees.
Asked by local Board of Finance Chairman Tom
Kelly how the consortium would use local support, Mr. Guarco
responded that a grass roots effort was needed to reach legislators.
"The folks at CABE, COST and CCM, which
are part and parcel of this development, need grass roots to weigh in," he
said.
He said a few members probably can't be
effective, but a consortium of 100 towns with 70 or more members can make a
difference.
When the boards of selectmen, finance and
education deliver the same message, the effect is even more dramatic, he
suggested.
Oxford finance board member Dick Burke, who
learned about the consortium in a newspaper article and who persuaded the
finance board to invite Mr. Guarco to a meeting,
suggested that the consortium needed to make communities aware of their
existence and their mission.
"If I hadn't read the article, none of
us would be sitting here tonight," he said.
Mr. Burke suggested that newsletter mailings
might be one way to make get other communities on board.
Asked how communities could join, Mr. Guarco said all that was necessary was to have town boards
adopt a resolution endorsing the consortium's mission statement.
Mr. Burke said after the meeting that he
hoped that the consortium grows.
"This grass roots effort has to become
more structured to keep it together," he said.
Selectman Dave Haversat
and Board of Education Chairman Robert DeBisschop
said they would take the proposal to their respective boards for their
endorsement.
Mr. DeBisscchop
said he believed the consortium had significant merit.
"The bigger we make that group, the
better off the local board will be," he said.
Mr. DeBisschop said
he agreed that the issues of binding arbitration and unfunded
state mandates needed to be addressed. In short, they're "killing
us," he said
Connecticut Municipal Consortium for
Fiscal Responsibility
The genesis of the Consortium – a broad alliance of duly elected town boards
from a host of municipalities throughout Connecticut – comes in response to the
growing wave of taxpayer discontent and local budget defeats we have witnessed
over the past couple of years. The rate of rejections remains high while local
property tax rates increase at around 5% per year. At the same time, overall
municipal employment declines and existing program is squeezed out of budgets
in town after town, victims of unbridled compensation and other state
interventions into our local budgetary affairs.
Our
focus is primarily on the cost-management side of the equation. Our
mission is to press for return to the local level of a greater ability to
manage key elements in our own municipal budgets.
The
platform planks are all common threads of the legislative agendas of the three major
municipal advocacy organizations – CCM, COST, and CABE – and call for leveling
the playing field under binding arbitration, raising the cost thresholds on
capital projects under prevailing wage laws, and prohibiting new mandates
placed on towns until state government meets its own existing funding
commitments to the towns under current law. Very simply, our joint message to
the Capitol is to untie our hands so that we are more able to better and more
efficiently manage our own local affairs.
These themes reinforce our view that our cause is pro-local government…
pro-education… and pro-taxpayer. Then our growing group of town boards, and
board chairmen, representing a broad and diverse group of municipalities
throughout Connecticut, seeks to deliver a common message with a unified voice
to legislators and the legislature… a message that truly is
across-the-boards…across-the-parties… and across-the-state.
We encourage the governing
authorities in every town and city - Boards of Selectmen, Education, Finance,
Alderman, and Town Councils - to join us by endorsing the Consortium effort and
by participating in pressing state lawmakers for change.
Has your town joined with
the Consortium yet?
We may be reached through
the following members:
Mike Guarco,
Chairman
Mike Zelasky,
Chairman
George McLaughlin, Chairman
Granby Board of
Finance Lisbon Board of
Finance New Milford Board of Finance
budgetguru06035@aol.com
MikeZelasky@adelphia.net
geomcljr@charter.net
Richard
Burke
John Adams, Chairman
Cal Heminway,
Chairman
Oxford Board of
Finance Granby Board of
Selectmen Granby Board of Education
Richard.Burke@asml.com
jadams@rizzo.com
calhemin@sbcglobal.net
WHAT YOU CAN DO
TO SUPPORT THE
CONSORTIUM EFFORT
Initial steps:
Secure endorsement from the
Boards in your town
Finance, Education, Selectmen/Town Council
Encourage the BOF Chair,
or his designee, to participate in the development of county-wide associations
that will combine to form a statewide network.
Long-range:
Educate yourself and
others on how and why reducing the slope of the cost curve allows more
flexibility in providing program and reducing tax rate increases.
Meet with your local
legislators on these issues and let them know why change is
important to your town, and townspeople.
Be an advocate for the issues:
Take the message to the Capitol, to your legislative delegation and others.
Testify when
the call goes out on a useful bill relating to our agenda.
Help us to broaden the
Consortium roster by securing support from town boards that agree with our
mission. Their support is very important and that of the Finance Chair is
vital.
If you would like to become
more active, you are most welcome to join us in reaching out to those in other
towns and spreading the message. Please feel free to contact any of those
listed below.
Mike Guarco,
Chairman
Mike Zelasky,
Chairman
George McLaughlin, Chairman
Granby Board of
Finance Lisbon Board of
Finance New Milford Board of Finance
Budgetguru06035@aol.com
MikeZelasky@adelphia.net
geomcljr@charter.net
Richard
Burke
John Adams, Chairman
Cal Heminway,
Chairman
Oxford Board of
Finance Granby Board of
Selectmen Granby Board of Educatiuon
Richard.Burke@asml.com
jadams@rizzo.com
calhemin@sbcglobal.net
Republican-American - Waterbury, Connecticut
EDITORIAL
Taxpayers' friend
Friday, July 1, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Republican-American
In a state dominated by socialist politicians
subservient to public-employee unions, what Big Labor says goes.
Breaking labor's stranglehold on taxpayers
will not be easy, but it's a fight worth winning, and taxpayers now have
another important ally in that fight: the bipartisan Connecticut Municipal
Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility.
The consortium's goal -- to fix the
fundamental flaws of compulsory arbitration in public-employee-union contracts
-- should be the No. 1 priority of the Connecticut
Conference of Municipalities and its ilk. Unfortunately, those organizations,
like the legislature and much of the executive branch, have been hijacked by
the unions and thus give only lip service to reforms when they are raised every
spring at the Capitol.
Given the odds of success, the fight for
reform must go on 24/7, and those in the trenches must be tireless and
relentless. And that's where the consortium can play its most vital role.
The consortium is led by Michael Guarco, chairman of Granby's
finance board who understands that fiscal responsibility will be impossible in Connecticut as long as
unelected arbiters wield their biased influence over the process and have the
final say on what's reasonable and necessary.
Mr. Guarco and just
about every municipal and state official know arbitration forces governments to
devote ever larger shares of their annual budgets to employee wages and
benefits. They know arbitration robs local governments of their ability to
address local needs and priorities. But the biggest difference is Mr. Guarco is willing to take on the powerful special interests
who enjoy putting the screws to helpless taxpayers.
To date, he has persuaded 75 boards from 60
towns to support the consortium's objective: amend labor laws that protect
unions while driving state and local taxes ever higher. He and the consortium
deserve the immediate and wholehearted support of municipal boards in Greater Waterbury, the Naugatuck
Valley and Litchfield County.
But that backing must be more than just the
adoption of a single, strongly worded resolution.
Members of boards of selectmen, finance and
education, as well as town councilors and aldermen, must be willing to put in
the time to agitate for arbitration reform. They must testify at legislative
hearings, speak to community groups and take every opportunity to raise the
issue of arbitration reform at any public forum.
They must get behind candidates for local and
state offices who share their view that the effects of binding arbitration may
be seen in Connecticut's deteriorated infrastructure, in underfunded
state and local pension funds, in reduced municipal and state services, in
narrowed school curriculums and in the rampant corruption in state government.
Those unwilling to make the commitment should step aside in favor of those who
are willing.
As veterans of the arbitration-reform effort,
we know the consortium is in for a long, hard, frustrating fight.
It cannot expect help from Big Labor's
lackeys in the legislature or from a news media reflexively sympathetic to
union causes. In the face of determined resistance from the entrenched special
interests, the consortium and its allies must not waver.
Only when taxpayers or people accountable
directly to them have the final say on union contracts will governments be able
to control their fiscal destiny and taxpayers secure genuine tax relief.