June 2, 2014
From: The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
With Connecticut’s
going debt and deficits, could the State of Connecticut or any other state file for bankruptcy
protection if necessary? This
issue is explored within the article captioned 3 Questions on State Bankruptcy - Council of State ... By Jennifer Burnett,
CSG Senior Research Analyst who notes: States face colossal fiscal pressures,
including mounting public pension obligations that now represent a $1 trillion
unfunded gap, according to the Pew Center on
the States. That gap—combined with other mounting fiscal woes—has led to a
national conversation about whether states should be allowed to file for
bankruptcy.http://www.csg.org/pubs/capitolideas/enews/issue65_3.aspx
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Connecticut’s 2016 - 2017
Deficit Grows
Nonpartisan Analysts Predict $2.8 Billion Budget Deficit for
2016-17
by Christine Stuart of CTNewsJunkie.com
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By CTPost.com
As of its last biennial actuarial evaluation in 2012, Connecticut had $9.7 billion in assets and $23
billion in liabilities in its State Employees' Retirement System (SERS), meaning that only 42.3 percent
of its obligations were funded, and $13.3 billion, or about 58 percent, were
unfunded. While an 80 percent funded ratio (20 percent unfunded) is generally
considered healthy, Connecticut is one of nine states, according to CNBC, that
have a ratio of less than 60 percent, and among those nine, it is second from
the bottom of the list, just behind Illinois.http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Connecticut-s-unfunded-pension-liabilities-A-4879149.php
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Retired Connecticut state employees received the highest
annual pensions in the country in 2011, despite contributing less out of their
paychecks than the national average. That meant the state's pension system was the second-most
underfunded in the United States, in worse shape than every other
state's except Illinois'. Connecticut would have to allocate about $70
million in additional funds each year for 18 years to close the funding gap in
the major state employees' pension system, according to actuarial estimates. And
that wouldn't address the $11 billion gap in the teachers' retirement system,
which would need tens of millions of dollars more every year during that same
period. http://www.theday.com/article/20140112/NWS12/140119903/%27A-financial-time-bomb%27:-State-pension-system-is-one-of-the-country%27s-most-underfunded
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The
aforementioned could have a dramatic impact on Connecticut homeowners and
businesses who are already $$$ TAXED TO THE MAX $$$ as evidenced by a recent
report placing Connecticut 4th from
the bottom among the Best & Worst States to be a Taxpayer | WalletHub® .
If, due to the State of Connecticut’s growing debts and deficits, the State is
forced to cut state aid to municipalities, the end result could be dramatic
increases in local property taxes within the 169 towns/cities in Connecticut forcing more homeowners to lose their
homes through Tax Lien Sales.
If you have paid off your mortgage, you really don’t own the property on
which your home was built. You
are simply leasing it from the Town. Your
lease payments come in the form of a property tax bill. Your failure to pay that bill will
result in your losing your home as readily as a bank would foreclose on your
home if you failed to pay your mortgage, as Wall Street quietly creates a new way to profit from
homeowner distress.
According to Forbes Magazine in December, 2012 “Some $426
billion in state and local tax on real estate is owed in the U.S. each year. “If a property owner doesn’t pay up, a tax lien can be
slapped on his property. “Twenty-eight states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands allow those
liens to be sold to private investors, and about $6 billion in liens come up
for sale each year.”
You can compare the interest charged on delinquent taxes by other States
as Connecticut charges 18% as noted at the link captioned delinquent property taxes - Connecticut General Assembly.
And for many struggling to hold on to their homes, Connecticut employees are among theHigher Percentage of
Part-time Workers in CT Than New York
. As Ctbytenumbers notes:
Connecticut’s percentage of part-time workers (22.2 percent) outpaces much of
the Northeast, South, Midwest and West, according to the latest Connecticut Economic Digest (CED), produced by the state
Department of Labor and Department of Economic and Community Development. In
the first examination of part-time employment in more than a decade, the
publication noted that part-time employment in Connecticut numbered 383,000 – 69.5 percent of
which (266,000) was women. This statewide share is among the highest in the
country, which had a 50-state average of 64 percent. http://ctbythenumbers.info/2014/05/28/higher-percentage-of-part-time-workers-in-ct-than-new-york-new-jersey-lower-than-new-england/
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As many struggle to meet
the high cost of taxation in our State, Connecticut StateOfficials take care of their own as the Hartford Courant recently reported noting
Judge Pension Tweak Opens Lucrative Door To
Insiders. Aging
political insiders who become judges hit the jackpot. State
lawmakers were supposed to fix a law that gives two freshly appointed judges
pensions of $106,000 each, plus lifetime health benefits when they retire — in
less than four years. Before they finish
their first eight-year term. Instead, lawmakers have made it easier to
get those rich pension benefits for themselves if they land a judgeship in
their 60s. This is unaffordable to the state and further entrenches patronage
politics in Connecticut. The state's pension system is
already "severely underfunded," according to a study by the Pew
Charitable Trusts. To make matters worse, Connecticut has "some of the steepest bills
in the country coming due for retirement health and other non-pension
benefits," Pew said. Continue reading at …..
http://articles.courant.com/2014-05-27/news/hc-ed-judges-pension-sweetheart-deal-20140527_1_pension-superior-court-judge-new-judge
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The question remains as to
how they will address the following:
Jon Lender: Judge, Suspended In 2009 After
Racially Charged Rant, Seeks Reappointment
Jon Lender Government Watch May 31, 2014
Superior Court Judge E. Curtissa R. Cofield — who in recent years has served two
disciplinary suspensions, one for 240 days after hurling racially charged
taunts at a black state trooper during her October 2008 drunken-driving arrest
— has applied for reappointment when her current term expires next year, The
Courant has learned.
Archive: Judge E. Curtissa R. Cofield Arrest
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