Community Corner

The Evolution of a State Budget

by Sen. Ed Meyer (D-12th Dist.)

Governor Malloy has proposed a state budget for the next two years, and it is now the responsibility of the state legislature to respond and hopefully improve on his proposals.  I have informed the Senate president that as the budget proposal now stands, I will be a ‘no’ vote. Let me explain.

The governor’s proposal seeks additional state taxes of about $1.5 billion targeted excessively, in my opinion, on the middle class.  For example, he proposes a 10 percent increase in the state income tax for taxpayers earning between $50,000 and $100,000, but he proposes only a 3 percent increase for taxpayers earning over $1 million.  His proposed increase in the sales tax and the expansion of that tax to include clothes and a variety of services again primarily hit the middle class.  All economic advisers - liberal or conservative - tell us that we will need some tax increases to balance a budget with such a huge deficit, but I believe that the targets are misplaced.

Secondly, the governor proposes to get $2 billion of wage and benefit concessions from our public employees over the next two years.  Concessions of that size are unrealistic, realizing that our public employees gave back $800 million just last year.  Far more preferable would be the selective downsizing of our state government which I believe would make it more effective and efficient.  Our state agencies are consumed by a multitude of managers doing duplicate work.  A recent study demonstrated that we have one manager for every six state employees while other states and the private sector average one manager for every 10 employees.  From six years of working with our state agencies, I am persuaded that selective downsizing of these agencies will actually make them more effective. 

Find out what's happening in Durham-Middlefieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

State budgets are works in progress, and I am making my views known through the Senate caucus.  While critical of some of the governor’s budget proposals, I am greatly impressed by his energy, commitment to the job and his taking his proposals on a statewide tour of seventeen cities and towns.  That communication will ultimately produce a reasonable and fair (though painful) state budget.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here