Branford Residents 'Tapped Out' Financially, One RTM Member Says

By Jack Kramer, Correspondent

BRANFORD, CT – Just like about every other town in the state Branford is struggling with how to deal with anticipated huge budget cuts coming from Hartford and how to sell the inevitable tax increase headed taxpayers way.

That difficult job caused tempers to flare at the most recent Representative Town Meeting on April 12th when members discussed, and eventually approved a contract for town workers which called for an approximate 1.08 percent annual pay increase – when factoring in increase health and benefit costs to be shared by the employees. (To sign up for Branford breaking news alerts and more, click here.)

While the contract was easily approved, even those who voted for it expressed frustration with the process of contract negotiations, and the binding arbitration process that is used when and if a contract is not approved.

The frustration was directed at the town’s chief labor negotiator, attorney Phil Ryan, who was grilled by a few RTM members.

“We’re tapped out,” RTM Republican member Marc Riccio repeatedly told Ryan. “When is it going to stop.

“It never ends,” Riccio added.

Riccio said the town’s growing senior population is finding it harder and harder to pay the ever increasing taxes it costs to live in Branford.

Riccio said the percentage of senior citizen living in Branford – currently 12 percent – is expected to more than triple to close to 40 percent – over the next decade. He said seniors are finding it harder and harder to afford to remain in Branford.

Fellow RTM member Edward Prete agreed, stating Branford’s senior population is growing “by leaps and bounds.”

RTM members said they felt frustrated because the only alternative they had to rejecting the contract was to go to binding arbitration, which Ryan conceded would likely wind up costing taxpayers more money because of the additional legal costs involved.

First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove said, he too, was concerned about the ever increasing tax burden hitting local residents, but he added it was unfair to place the blame on town workers.

He called the contract “fair’’ for both the workers and the taxpayers and said the real issue is that the state’s finances are in bad shape – and towns like Branford are paying for the state’s fiscal woes.

All at the meeting agreed the only real remedy is to try and change the state’s collective bargaining agreement laws. There are several proposed bills attempting to do so currently being debated in the General Assembly.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed two-year budget takes millions of dollars away from Branford, and many other towns in the state of Connecticut, in an effort to help make-up for a more than $3.6 billion deficit the state is in.