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 the Higher 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
State Officials 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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