107th District candidates differ on resolving state fiscal crisis

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – In the Land of Steady Habits fiscal woes have become a habit.

Connecticut is the only New England state that hasn’t recovered all of the jobs it lost in the 2008 recession. What’s more, the state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness reported last March that the state’s economy contracted eight percent from 2007 to 2016.

Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford), who is not seeking a third term this year, has trimmed the full-time state work force by 13.1 percent since 2011 and reduced the prison population to its lowest level since 1994.

Yet, there is projected $4.6 billion spending gap for the two year budget cycle that starts next July and the Fiscal Stability Commission has stated that the pension system is only 29 percent funded. The News-Times of Danbury recently reported that Brookfield’s pension system is 95 percent funded and that across the state the average in the 169 municipal governments is 70 percent.

The two candidates in the ambitious campaign in the 107^th state House District differ on how to resolve the fiscal hurdles.

In capsule form, two-term Republican incumbent Stephen Harding of Brookfield says he’s adamantly opposed to increasing taxes, while Democratic challenger Daniel Pearson, also of Brookfield, and wants to increase taxes on the state’s “wealthy” residents.

The candidates spent considerable time during the early stages of a debate at Brookfield’s Whisconier Middle School on Thursday, October 25, discussing how to strengthen an economy in which there are fewer jobs than there were in 1989 or in 2008.

Notably, economist Donald Klepper-Smith, who headed former Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s (R-Brookfield) economic team, has said that the metro Danbury area has outperformed the rest of Connecticut. The eight towns in the region have recaptured more than 100 percent of the jobs lost during the recession.

The 107^th District includes all of Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Danbury.

Harding said that “probably the most important thing” we do in the next two years is address Connecticut’s structural deficits.

He called on the General Assembly to “find efficiencies in our government” and that should include “contract negotiations” with state employee collective bargaining units.

“The unions already have made concessions,” said Pearson at the forum, which was sponsored by the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce.

A report from a consultant to the state Office of Policy Management has reported that the contract signed in 2017 will save the state $24 billion over 20 years. State employee leaders have added that their workers have accepted six hard wage freezes in recent years and now contribute more money toward their pensions.

However, Danbury Republican Mayor Mark Boughton, who sought the GOP gubernatorial nomination in the August primary, has recently compared the state employee concessions to saying that “the barn is on fire and we saved half the barn.”

Pearson, who has been co-endorsed by the Working Families Party, said no state employees should be placed in a 401(k) – defined contribution - program

“That is absolutely not the right answer,” he declared. “That hurts working families.”

Harding said he supports putting new hires into a defined contribution plan. The 2017 contract agreement moved them from a defined benefit system to a hybrid plan.

“Every time we get a new employee, we’re taxing our debt,” he said. “We can’t afford the system that we have now.”

However, the next governor will face obstacles in lowering costs through state employee savings.

The 2017 agreement has a no layoffs clause through June 2021 and the benefits package has been extended until 2027.

CT Mirror has reported that a state cannot declare bankruptcy the way a private company or city can.

Boughton said recently that even with a seriously underfunded pension system, he doubts that the state employee collective bargaining units will return to the negotiating table to make further concessions.

Pearson said the pension funding shortfall largely has resulted from decades of neglect by state officials and that he supports a “lockbox” that would guarantee that an adequate amount of funds be placed annually in the pension system.

State Comptroller Kevin Lembo (D-Guilford) and Brookfield Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn have praised Malloy for being the first governor in a generation to put adequate funds into the pension system each year.

“One thing we cannot do is raise taxes,” Harding said at the debate, which attracted about 100 people.

He said the “unprecedented” tax hikes of 2011 and 2017 “are going to continue to be a burden.”

Pearson called for a higher earned income tax credit for the lower income residents.

He also said the state should invest in more affordable housing, education and health care.

“If you cut taxes, you hurt programs,” said Pearson. “People will move out” of Connecticut.

When pressed by Harding about how he thought he could resolve a huge budget gap through increased spending, Pearson pointed to increased taxes on the wealthy, who he claims don’t pay their fair share in Connecticut. He has said during the campaign that the top 1 percent pay per capita the least amount of taxes in the Nutmeg State.

Greenwich Avenue, for example, the central business district in Greenwich that houses hedge fund offices and expensive clothing stores, has been ranked as the fifth most expensive street in the United States, according to a January report by JLL, a professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management.

However, Kevin Sullivan of West Hartford, the former lieutenant governor and more recently the former commissioner of the state Department of Revenue Services, has told The Wall Street Journal that losing wealthy residents can have a notable impact on tax revenue.

Forbes has reported that Connecticut has nine billionaires – the wealthiest being Greenwich resident Ray Dalio, the owner of Bridgewater Associates in Westport, the largest hedge fund in the world.

Republicans have controlled the 107^th District for 50 of the 52 years since it was established.

Rell, former state House Speaker Fran Collins and former Brookfield Town Treasurer David Scribner, all Republicans from Brookfield, have represented the district. The only Democrat to win was the late James Mannion, a Bethel attorney, who captured the seat in 1974.

Scribner, who served from 1999 to early 2015, ran five times with no Democratic opponent and Harding was unopposed in 2016 in his bid for a second term.

Pearson and his volunteers were canvassing neighborhoods by late June and had a campaign headquarters. Harding began going door to door at about the same time and started posting lawn signs before July 1.

The amount of early campaign activity may have been unprecedented in the district.

Part of the explanation may be that Brookfield, for example, has undergone a different political dynamic in recent years as a Democrat has captured the first selectman’s office in four of the last five municipal elections.