Gubernatorial Hopeful Drew Says Connecticut's Cities Need Help

By Scott Benjamin

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Dan Drew says Connecticut has lovely suburbs and rural towns, but that there are so many of them that it poses two economic hurdles – urban sprawl and the lack of a huge population to build an innovation hub
He says the sprawl has left many of the Nutmeg State’s cities, all small in population by national standards, with some of the highest tax mill rates among its 169 municipalities.

Drew, now in his third term as the mayor of Middletown, said in a phone interview that Connecticut needs property tax reform and more regional cooperation.

He said cities, such as his which has a population of more than 43,000, have been hurt by what CT Mirror columnist Tom Condon has called “government-aided suburbanization.”

For example, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, a Democrat, has asked the state for a $50 million economic rescue package. The city, which was once a manufacturing capital is still the home to several insurance giants, but most of their employees live in the neighboring suburbs.

Drew said, as is the case in Hartford, Middletown has a Little Ivy League private college, a community college, state and federal government buildings and a hospital that are tax-exempt and detract from the municipal grand list.

“The property tax is regressive,” said Drew, who established a state campaign committee on January 12. “It hurts the cities. When our cities are stronger, then our suburbs are stronger.”

Condon has written that some suburbs have revised their zoning laws to limit the influx of families with children, since the schools are their largest expense. This has, he wrote, provided fewer homes for young families and has contributed to people leaving Connecticut.

Reportedly some suburbs have resisted the state affordable appeals housing act, which allows developers to circumvent municipal zoning regulations if it is not meeting state quotas in affordable units.

Drew said in a phone interview that instead of a city having “multiple fire districts and sewer districts, which are cost drivers,” a consolidation of services regionally would save money for the municipalities and the state.

However, Brookfield First Selectman Steve Dunn, a Democrat, said regionalization is hurting his town since it would cost more to be part of a collective health department for the metro Danbury area than for Brookfield to maintain its current health director and sanitarian.

Drew believes that over the recent years, the state has been able to consolidate programs and still provide the same services.

“There have been some positive steps,” he explained regarding the reform of the probate court, the regional planning agencies and putting the community colleges and the Connecticut State University under a Board of Regents.

Property tax reform has long been an elusive goal in Connecticut.

Two-time Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Curry of Farmington made property tax reform a signature issue in his 1994 and 2002 races and former U.S. Rep. Barbara Kennelly of Hartford, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 1998, also included it in her platform.

But finding savings in the state budget has been an obstacle as has the fundamental issue of seeing some municipalities get more state aid at the expense of others.

Curry’s 2002 plan called for concessions from the state employee collective bargaining units to pay for part of the costs.

M. Jodi Rell of Brookfield, who was then running for a third term as lieutenant governor, said, “I don’t want to come within 10 feet of that one,” an apparent reference to the strong presence that the bargaining units have in the General Assembly.

Two-term incumbent Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford) indicated in his State of The State address earlier this month that the $5.1 billion in municipal aid represents 22 percent of the state budget, making it the most expensive component.

Malloy, who has generally tried to maintain municipal aid during his first six years in office, is expected to announce some reductions in next month’s budget address.

In 2015, Malloy, the former 14-year mayor of Stamford, and the General Assembly approved a 2.5 percent annual cap on municipal budget increases in return for a larger return of the sales tax revenue.

“If you have a cap and there is less municipal aid then towns are going to do unsound things, such as bonding for operating expenses,” Drew said. “Plus if you cut school aid, you might have some special needs students who can’t be serviced within the school district, which would place a burden on families.

Malloy said earlier this month that there would be fewer state mandates in the budget he submits for the next two fiscal years.

Drew said he’s not sure if that will help.

“It depends on the changes,” he said.

Secondly, regarding the issues related to a largely suburban state, Drew, 37, said large companies are not as interested in building headquarters in Connecticut’s multiple small cities and suburbs as they were a generation ago.

“Young people want to live in Boston or New York City,” said the mayor, who is a graduate of New Milford High School.

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote in his 2015 book, “America Ascendant,” that two-thirds of college-educated millennials live in the nation’s 51 largest cities, largely because that’s where many of the brain hubs are located.

The Boston Globe reported last month that the Route 128 corridor near Boston has contributed since 2000 to 50 percent of Massachusetts’ job growth being in brain hub positions. That compares to just 6 percent in Connecticut over that same span.

Regarding the campaign, Drew is raising money in small amounts, needing $250,000 to qualify for a Citizens Election grant.

He said due to those conditions, he needed to enter the race early and will evaluate his progress.

Malloy has not indicated whether he will seek a third term. Since the late 1700s, only Republican John Rowland, who served from 1995 to 2004, has been elected three times as governor.

Some political observers believe Malloy won’t opt for another term since his administration has been plagued by budget woes. He had only a 24 percent approval rating in a Quinnipiac University poll last June.

Drew praised Malloy for putting more money into the state employee pension system than previous governors.

The system is only 35.5 percent funded and it is expected that Malloy will seek concessions from the state employee collective bargaining units.

Drew said nothing can be done with the retirees and that the current workers “are paying their fair share.”

However, CTNewsJunkie columnist Terry Cowgill has stated that state employees contribute 0-2 percent into fund while the national average for state workers is 7 percent.

Critics say that the large pension obligations are crowding out spending for other programs at a time when Connecticut faces a projected $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion budget deficit for the fiscal year that starts in July.

Drew says he objects to a Republican proposal to partly balance the budget through a three-year wage freeze on state employees.

“It doesn’t make sense to have the state employees bear that burden,” he said.

Instead, he said state officials should close loopholes in the corporation tax. The Office of Fiscal Analysis, the General Assembly’s budget arm, has reported that the corporation tax generated 20 percent of the state’s revenue in 1989 but only 6 percent in 2016.

“We should not be subsidizing corporations,” Drew said. He added that he doubts any corporations including General Electric, which is moving most its world headquarters from Fairfield to Boston, left Connecticut because its corporate taxes were too high.

The General Assembly held a symposium in 2004 on loopholes that have allowed some large companies to pay no corporate taxes.

However, Drew said the state should examine its regulations, which have been criticized by some business leaders and economists.

“Some of them, such as ensuring safe roads and bridges make sense, while others might not be needed,” the mayor said.

Drew declined to evaluate Malloy’s First Five/Next Five program in which state incentives have been provided to such companies as ESPN, Bridgewater Associates, NBC Sports and Cigna to expand their operations in the state.

He said his policy in Middletown, which recently attracted a 400-employee Federal Express hub, is that there has to be “a clear path to more tax revenue and additional jobs.”

He said that he believes Connecticut could attract more pharmaceutical and research and development companies.

However, he said one detriment to luring companies to the state is its high electricity costs.

That appears to be a chronic problem. Former Gov. Ella Grasso (D-Windsor Locks) campaigned on lowering electric costs and championed a stronger Department of Public Utility Control during her first term in office. Yet her Republican opponents announced in 1978 as she was seeking a second term that no one’s electrical rates had gone down.

Rowland signed an electrical deregulation law in 1998 that former state Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-Goshen) reportedly years later described as a “bill of goods.”

While running for governor in 2010, Malloy said that Connecticut had the second highest electrical rates in the country.

Drew said the answer to lower electrical costs is an increase in the use of green technologies.

“The more options you have, the lower the costs will eventually be,” he said.

Democrats say that if Malloy doesn’t run for a third term, the other likely candidates for the party’s nomination are state Comptroller Kevin Lembo of Guilford, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp, former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz of Middletown and state Sen. Ted Kennedy of Branford.

Drew is proposing a progressive platform, which is usually attractive in Democratic primaries, where reportedly a disproportionate number of public employee union members and activists vote.

“The people working financial services sector of our state economy has done relatively well since the recession in comparison to the middle class,” he said.

Greenberg, the Democratic pollster, has stated that those workers who lost their jobs during the recession but then got a new job, on average, took a 17 percent cut below their previous compensation. Greenberg wrote that more economists are attributing the lower wages, at least in part, to increased automation and robotics.

For decades Democrats nominated candidates who had either served in Congress or had ascended to the office as lieutenant governor when a vacancy occurred. However, the party’s nominees in the last three elections has been a mayor or former mayor. Malloy was elected in 2010, a year after he left the top office in Stamford and then was re-elected in 2014. He narrowly lost the 2006 Democratic primary to then-New Haven Mayor John DeStefano.

However, if he formally enters the race, Drew would be seeking to be the first sitting mayor elected governor since Morgan Bulkeley of Hartford in 1888.