Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

From the State�s Office of Legislative Research:� EDUCATION MANDATES ON LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS� Click on the following -� ��http://www.cga.ct.gov/2006/rpt/2006-R-0355.htm

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U.S. losing its middle-class neighborhoods

Metro areas show widening gap between rich and poor sections

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062101735.html

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FCTO Extends its appreciation to Judy Aron of West Hartford for bringing the following to our attention, to include the information on Connecticut�s Gas Tax.� We pay 25 cents in gas tax for every gallon we buy. With a $900 Million Surplus some may question if we are being overtaxed!� A suggestion might be returning some of this money to the taxpayers at the pumps!�� Or paying down the State�s long term debt!� Or putting more into the State�s rainy day fund!� Or giving some to the municipalities to offset our local property taxes!!� Or?� Let us here from you � where do you think the surplus money should be applied????� Susan Kniep

Governor Rell: Surplus Tops $900 Million

Deposit Brings �Rainy Day Fund� to $1 Billion for First Time

Governor M. Jodi Rell announced today that the 2005-2006 General Fund budget surplus now stands at approximately $910 million, up over $100 million from last month�s estimate. http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?Q=316922&A=2425

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June 13, 2006 �..� From NBC 30 News � The state's gas tax collection has dropped nearly $3 million since this time last year, suggesting that Connecticut drivers are being more frugal at the pump�.The state Department of Revenue Services reports that Connecticut collected about $297.1 million from the gas tax in the first 10 months of the 2006 budget year�. The tax, 25 cents a gallon, is added to the price at the pump.�

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RICHES FOR SOME AT THE PUMPS!

FOR LEADING EXXON TO ITS RICHES, $144,573 A DAY http://www.amhersttimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1225&Itemid=27

Donna McCalla, ctjodi@sbcglobal.net

Hebron Dollars and Sense

CT Tax Increase Comparisons spreadsheet as of June 18, 2006

June 18, 2006

A message from Donna McCalla:

Hello, all.� Of the 169 Connecticut municipalities and 17 regional school districts, we now have 142 confirmed budget passages, with supporting data, and 69 defeated budgets (includes multiple referenda.)� This is a record number of defeated budgets for this phase of the budget season. Residents are feeling the brunt of revaluations, as well as the increased costs they face in terms of insurance, electricity, heating, and food.

We are at the stage of gaining the final data from the missing towns by phone calls, and I thank Edie Duncan of Granby for her assistance this past week.� Trying to get the data at this stage of the budget season is difficult to say the least.� For example, in East Haven, after an extended conversation with a member of the Finance Department, in which I was never even asked if I were an East Haven resident, I was finally told that �you don�t need that information; if you want it, you�ll have to file a Freedom of Information request.�� Heavy sigh�. Fortunately, I was able to obtain it without taking that measure�

As you can see on a new Tab 2, the average approved tax increase, factoring in the final vote from multiple referenda towns that ultimately passed their budgets, is 4.24%.� That number is heavily influenced by Salisbury, West Haven, Fairfield, Newington, and Washington.� Therefore, after factoring out those five highest and five lowest approved budgets, the average tax increase of approved budgets is 4.13%.� Average tax increase is one measure; the other is spending increase:� of the approved budgets, for the data we have,� for the first time in five years, there is an average general government spending increase almost equal to the education spending increase:� 5.21% for General Government; 5.41% for Education.

Towns facing Round Two of a budget vote are:� Bethany, Brooklyn, Canterbury, Lisbon, Morris, Oxford, Sherman, Sterling, Windsor, Winsted and Woodbury.

Towns facing Round Three of a budget vote are: Andover, Chaplin, Colchester, Region 13, Sprague, Stafford and Vernon.

Towns facing Round Four of a budget vote are:� East Hampton, Region 10, and Seymour.

If you can provide any of the missing data, either for towns with passed budgets, or for towns still seeking to obtain voter approval budget, please let me know.� Thanks, Donna

Refer to Donna's attached list in Excel

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Jim Hoover, jim.hoover@sbcglobal.net

Vernon Taxpayers Association

Subject:� Vernon Budget

June 20, 2006

The Vernon referendum was defeated by 108 votes. Yes votes 1577; No votes 1685.

I have attached my press release (click on the following to access) Vernon Taxpayers Association issues Press Release with recommendations to the Mayor and Council for your review.� Thank you for your attention to this important matter.��

The following is an excerpt from the Press Release �.�

�� The council must set aside political differences and join the The�� Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility - This organization is a coalition of small towns aiming to obtain funding from the State of Connecticut for the mandates imposed upon the towns.(To date, 159 elected or appointed municipal boards and board chairmen (refer to the attached) representing 98 of the 169 towns across Connecticut have joined in endorsing the Consortium in its grassroots and bipartisan efforts to seek State legislative reforms that will give municipal officials the ability to manage their budgets.� Property taxes can only be controlled when the State legislature reforms its mandates and allows elected officials to have direct control over their budgets.� It is important to note that any and all reforms proposed to Binding Arbitration and Prevailing Wage statutes in this legislative session were either defeated by the State legislature or allowed to die in committee.� Taxpayers on a local level can reverse this trend by bringing their message to control property taxes directly to their State legislators where true reform must be initiated.)�

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We appreciate Elliot Check sharing his very perceptive editorial with us.� Elliot�s editorial recently appeared in the Hartford Courant.

Elliot Check, West Hartford

Subject:� Leaving Us the Gift of Taxes

I recently had an interesting conversation with a very liberal friend.� He worked as a teacher and then for the state Department of Education for more than 20 years.� He is now retired and works as a consultant and independent contractor.� He is thinking of making Florida his primary state of residence.� Besides the weather, he is tired of paying taxes.��

I asked him if he thought it was fair to desert this state when it was the tax-and-spend policies he and others supported and encouraged over the years that created our current tax situation. He had no answer.

Because he will be in Florida for six months and a day and here for nearly six months, I asked him if he would voluntarily send the state half the taxes that would be due.� He did not think that would be a good idea.��

My mother, who is a retired teacher and former liberal, also changed her residence to Florida. She, too, was not happy with the state income and estate taxes. She now resides in a community of about 5,000 retirees from the Northeast, many of them former teachers and just about all of them liberals. Would those in the General Assembly like to hazard a guess as to how many of these retirees are sending voluntary taxes back to the states they deserted?� The lesson I take from these examples is that even liberals don�t want to pay taxes, and when the opportunity presents itself, then run to greener pastures, despite the policies they promoted.�

As our legislature discusses the budget and comes to decisions on taxes and spending, it would do well to consider situations such as these.� It may want to ponder why job growth in Connecticut is stagnant while rising nationally and why companies are leaving the state at a faster rate than new business is entering it.� Legislators would do well to take these factors into consideration before creating their new tax plans,�� rather than wondering why the state is having problems after they start their new taxes.� Elliot Check

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State-backed venture fund, adviser invest in same deal

By:Don Michak, Journal Inquirer, 06/15/2006

Connecticut Innovations Inc., a high-tech venture capital firm started with state bonding money, invested $1 million last month in a Wallingford company that makes sonar-based flow meters, CiDRA Corp. http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16794758&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=161556&rfi=6

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Pat Mytych, Vernon, pjmytych@sbcglobal.net

A new beginning, 06/14/2006

Kudos to Pat for a great editorial which recently appeared in the Journal Inquirer.� The Journal Inquirer�s report on this subject appears below.

The anti-corruption bill and the pension cancellation measure have again died.
During the past three sessions of the state legislature, the House and Senate have chosen to ignore these measures at the expense of Connecticut's citizens. Could it be that the legislators are grateful they weren't caught and if they are ever caught, they won't be punished?� Perhaps it is time for voters to think about the corruption in our government, remove everyone in office, and start new.�� The newly elected would be required to take ethics training. They would not necessarily be better but we would have their attention and the history of what could happen if they don't represent us honestly.� Voters of all parties have to start thinking and voting to help the people, not line the pockets.� Pat Mytych, Vernon�� http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=16788251&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=569380&rfi=8

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Anti-corruption bill dies quietly -- again, and again

By Keith M. Phaneuf, Journal Inquirer, May 30, 2006
HARTFORD -- Next month will mark two years since a special House impeachment inquiry concluded that former Gov. John G. Rowland accepted lucrative vacations, gifts, cash, and other perks from contractors and subordinates alike.
Rowland, who would announce his resignation days before the panel was expected to recommend impeachment, became the poster child for advocates of a bill to allow the state to cancel the pensions of corrupt officials.
Since then, Rowland has served 10 months in prison after being convicted of a federal corruption charge. His former chief of staff, Peter N. Ellef, was sentenced in April to 30 months in prison in connection with the same bid-rigging scandal that landed the Republican governor in jail.
And Democrats also haven't been immune from scandal. Former state Sen. Ernest E. Newton II, D-Bridgeport, was sentenced in February to five years in prison. Newton was found guilty of taking a $5,000 bribe for trying to secure a state grant for a Bridgeport job training firm, and for diverting $40,000 in campaign contributions for personal use.
But despite these and other instances of corruption, the pension cancellation measure has died a quiet death in the state legislature in each of the past three sessions.
The bill, which has been endorsed by the Government Administration and Elections Committee each year, never has even been debated on the floor of the House or Senate, despite having the public support of many big political names.
"Everyone loves to talk about good government and ethics, but, frankly, their words don't often equate into action," Rep. Christopher L. Caruso, D-Bridgeport, co-chairman of the Government Administration Committee, said last week. "Once good government legislation affects people directly, they don't always want that much to do with it."
"I just don't get it. Why haven't more people fought for this?" added Sen. Edith G. Prague, D-Columbia, co-chairwoman of the Labor Committee and, like Caruso, one of the more vocal advocates for the pension cancellation bill. "We're talking, in some cases, about people who have cost the taxpayers millions and millions of dollars."
Rowland admitted in January that he traded gifts in exchange for access to his office with contractors, including one that received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts.
Rowland, 49, will receive a $50,000-a-year pension starting at age 55.
And because he has more than 10 years total service in state government -- including 9 as governor and four in the House of Representatives -- he also is eligible for Blue Cross/Blue Shield health insurance throughout his retirement.
Ellef, 62, receives an annual pension of $19,660, which is based on an average annual salary of $123,126 during his last three years of state service.
He left the Rowland administration in March 2002 after serving a total of seven years, first as commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development and then as co-chief of staff alongside former state Rep. Sidney J. Holbrook, R-Westbrook.
"This is an outrage," Prague said, adding she believes voters would be furious to learn of these pensions.
And though it's difficult to find many state officials who've spoken out publicly against pension repeal bills, why hasn't their been one public floor debate? Are legislators hesitant to adopt a penalty that could affect them directly?
"Behind closed doors, many people talk a completely different game," Caruso said.
In the waning days of the 2004 legislative session, then-House Speaker Moira K. Lyons, D-Stamford, did acknowledge publicly she had a problem with this penalty, arguing it hurts not only a state official, but also any relatives or other dependents whose lives may be affected by that pension as well.
Former Senate President Pro Tem Kevin B. Sullivan, D-West Hartford, repeatedly has backed the bill.
But when Rowland resigned in July 2004, and Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell was elevated to governor, Sullivan lost his powerful legislative seat and was required by the state constitution to become lieutenant governor.
The 2004 version of bill was revised in 2005 and again this year, allowing anyone facing loss of pension to appeal to a judge. The magistrate could restore some or the entire pension based upon various circumstances, including the severity of the corruption or the family responsibilities of the convicted official.
"We are not done with the work of reforming ethics in state government," Sullivan said in February, urging lawmakers to embrace the compromise measure and make it retroactive so it would cover Rowland administration figures and Newton.
Instead the measure was merged into a controversial, omnibus ethics bill that also restricted lobbying by former officials who leave state service, and on the governor's chief of staff's ability to solicit campaign contributions.
The entire measure died when the 2006 session ended May 3, as officials instead rushed to pass a bill to close loopholes in the new campaign finance system.
Privately, some lawmakers said the latest impasse might be tied to a labor-management issue.
Though labor officials favor such a penalty for elected officials such as Rowland, they say unionized rank-and-file workers pensions cannot be canceled by legislation, since those benefits are spelled out in contracts.
But Prague said that is an obstacle that can be overcome, adding any penalty should stretch across all segments of state government.
"Any state employees, whether elected or appointed, classified or not, if convicted of a crime should absolutely not get a pension," she said. "If we're talking about a major crime, it's not fair to the taxpayers to give out these kinds of pensions."