New Tolls Proposal Pitched By Lamont

HARTFORD, CT — Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration painted a dire picture of Connecticut’s roads. He said in ten years the condition of the state’s roads and bridges will be so bad that the federal government would start cutting funding. However, there remains a divide on whether tolls are the answer to that problem.

Lamont also tossed in a proposal to reduce the income tax for those making $125,000 and under in Connecticut in order to help alleviate the cost of tolls for state residents.

“The theory is we are going to raise a significant amount of money through tolling to go to just transportation,” Lamont said. “I understand the middle class is getting squeezed in this state and tolling is in many ways going to be costly to some folks… we thought if I could reduce the income tax for folks plus a credit on the EZ Pass for working families we could make this affordable, make this doable and get us going.”

The federal government performs a routine audit on the condition of federal highways and bridges in states. As of right now they are at about 85 percent in good repair, but that number would drop by 40 percent over the next ten years without a surge of transportation funding, said DOT Commissioner Joe Giulietti. At that point the federal government gets to dictate more about how federal funding is spent in the state and there is a chance that funding would be reduced.

“We are not talking about that right at this moment, we are talking about the ten year projection coming at us,” he said.

Transferring the car sales tax into the Special Transportation Fund only buys three or four years before Connecticut roads get to that dire point, said Melissa McCaw, secretary of the Office of Policy Management.

One hurdle in the legislative building is that there is severe skepticism over the past 20 years on how the state spends money, Lamont said, adding that he is doing everything he can to calm those skepticisms. He said he was very confident a special session would be called to deal with transportation issues.

Republican leadership agreed to meet with Lamont and Democratic legislative leadership to talk about transportation issues in Connecticut, but they remained steadfast in their opposition to tolls and skepticism over some sort of tax reduction in exchange for tolls. They said that tax reductions weren’t talked about in detail during the meeting.

“We don’t support tolls period,” said Republican Senate leader Len Fasano.

House Republican leader Themis Klarides said she heard nothing in the two hour meeting that would change her position on supporting tolls. Both her and Fasano agreed to study the data presented at the meeting about the state of transportation funding in Connecticut.

“We are in that room because they don’t have the votes,” Fasano said. “… we’re in that room because he needs our help to get tolls over the finish line, because he knows that most of the legislators in this building know that the tolls are not the answer because government can’t be trusted.”

Fasano added that Democrats didn’t ask to meet with Republicans on several other past issues including increasing the minimum wage and health insurance changes.

Klarides remained highly skeptical of any kind of tax reduction in exchange for a yes vote on tolls. Just because a tax is reduced doesn’t guarantee that it would stay that way for the future, she said

“For me that tradeoff is not a real tradeoff,” she said. “It’s not fair because we know as a legislature and as a governor things can change on a daily basis.”