Senator Supports Local Businesses

State Rep. Jim Crawford (D), who represents Killingworth, Clinton and Westbrook, recently provided testimony in support of a bill he introduced that would give local businesses a better opportunity to secure state contracts.

The Bill, HB5736, would require state agencies to award state contracts to in-state bidders as long as they fall within 5 percent of the lowest bid.

Speaking before the Government, Administration and Elections Committee, Rep. Crawford said, “This bill helps to create jobs and ensure that jobs will stay in Connecticut and keeps our tax money in state.”

A local businessman and former Branford official, Jim Rizzo of Killingworth, brought the idea to Crawford after seeing success with awarding Branford town contracts to businesses in town.

“The program helped keep town money in town which supports local jobs and the families paying the local taxes,” said Rizzo. “I feel this idea should be brought up to the state level and give Connecticut businesses the opportunity to compete with larger out of state companies for our contracts. We are paying state taxes so we should try to keep our state contract dollars in state and feed our own folks first. Let’s keep our money ours, and try to prevent it from becoming theirs.”

“In this economy we should be doing everything that we can to support local businesses and grow jobs in Connecticut,” said Crawford. “Awarding contracts to out of state bidders does little to help our economy.  These contractors are paid with our taxpayer dollars. As we face a state budget crisis and are looking at residents to pay off the huge state deficit, we owe it to them to keep as much of their hard earned dollars in state as we can.”