Harding insists state shouldn't trim aid to towns, hospitals

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD - State Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield says he “wholeheartedly” disagrees with the state’s budget director, who contends that hospitals and municipalities are the largest obstacles to Connecticut’s fiscal stability.

CTNewsJunkie reported that Ben Barnes - the departing secretary of the Office of Policy & Management (OPM), the governor’s budget arm – said at a forum in Hartford recently that hospitals are the only group he knows of that is able to dedicate all the taxes they pay “right back into the bottom line.”

Barnes is about to become the chief financial officer for the state Board of Regents, which oversees the four-year state public university system, the 12 community colleges and Charter Oak College.

Hospitals in the state have had a contentious relationship with departing Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford), even running television commercials against his decision to increase their taxes.

Harding, who annexed 59.3 percent of the vote against Brookfield Democrat Daniel Pearson in capturing a third term in November, said the state has “done a lot to tax [the hospitals into] oblivion.”

His district includes Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Danbury. Danbury Hospital has long been the largest employer in the Hat City.

“You’re only threatening the health care and employment of many individuals across the state,” Harding declared when asked about Barnes’ comments.

Regarding municipalities, Barnes said, “We are spending a lot of money on communities that have plenty of money.” He added that right now “no town can ever get less that what they got the year before” in state aid.

Among other things, Malloy in 2017 sought to get the municipalities to pay for up to a third of the teacher retirement costs, which the state has fully funded since 1939.

Brookfield Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn has told Brookfield Patch that he objects to the state taking that action since it made a commitment nearly 80 years ago to fund the teachers' pensions.

Greenwich businessman David Stemerman, who placed third in the Republican gubernatorial primary last August, told Brookfield Patch recently that the current arrangement between the state and municipalities is “not sustainable.”

On the municipalities, Harding said, “I would be hard-pressed to think that we could maintain our services unless there was greater state assistance. They rely on state support to operate their education systems and other functions.”

Harding added that there is “a direct correlation to property tax increases or reducing educational programs.”

However, the 1996 and 2007 accreditation reports on Brookfield High School from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges indicated that there is a difference in Brookfield between ability to pay taxes and willingness to pay taxes.

CTNewsJunkie reported that Barnes said during his recent appearance that to save money in municipalities, the state needs to get serious about regionalization. He said that could partly be accomplished by the General Assembly approving incentives to merge operations between municipalities.

Harding said, “I believe that true incentivizing of regionalization is fine. The problem though is that [the Malloy] administration has supported policies which would effectively force certain municipalities to regionalize under the guise of incentivizing. Threats of significant reductions to municipal funding as an example. These are policies that I in no way support and would work against.”

Harding said Gov.-elect Ned Lamont’s first initiative should be addressing a projected $1.7 billion deficit for the fiscal year starting in July.

He said the governor should seek to lower costs on state employee pensions and health care by seeking to rewrite the 2017 agreements with state employee bargaining units.

However, some observers believe that may be a taller order than leaping over the 38-foot Uncle Sam statute from the famed now-defunct Danbury State Fair that recently returned to the Hat City.

Larry Dorman, the public affairs coordinator for the American Federal State County and Municipal Employees Council 4, which represents about 15,000 Connecticut state workers, told Greenwich Patch in August that a consultant to OPM has stated that the 2017 concessions will save taxpayers $24 billion over the 20 years through 2037. He has said that state workers have accepted six hard wage freezes in recent years and have made sacrifices that “no insurance executive or hedge fund trader” has made.

The 2017 agreement - which narrowly was approved in the state House, with Harding voting against it, and got passed in the state Senate with Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman (D-Tolland) making the deciding vote – has a no layoffs provision through June 2021 and extended the fringe benefit package from 2022 to 2027. There also is a salary freeze through June of 2020.

The state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness reported in March that the state employees’ pension system was only 29 percent funded.

CTMirror has reported that much of the problem is due to pension costs that were not budgeted for over decades. State Comptroller Kevin Lembo (D-Guilford) has credited Malloy as being the first governor in at least a generation to adequately annually fund the pension system.

“We cannot sustain the current system that we have,” Harding said. Dunn has noted several times that state officials need to resolve the pension crisis.

Stemerman has said that Connecticut, New Jersey and Illinois will probably be in a race to utilize the 11^th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which could “protect the state against accumulated debt.”

Harding, an attorney, said “it is difficult to say” if the 11^th Amendment could help resolve the state’s pension crisis.

CT Hearst Politics Editor Ken Dixon has noted that under the 2017 agreement an estimated 16,000 new state workers may be hired over the next few years who will have less expensive 401(k)-style pension provisions.

Harding said he doubts that there will be major changes in the pension expenses during the early stages of the Lamont Administration.

“Usually when you have a written contract you have very little wiggle room,” he said regarding possible further concessions from the state employee collective bargaining units.

“I don’t blame [the union leadership] for holding up the contract and saying, ‘This is what was guaranteed to us,’ ” Harding said. “At the end of the day, they have leverage.”

He said perhaps the only way to get further concessions in the short-term would be to appeal to the rank and file state employees. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who was second in the GOP gubernatorial primary last August, has told Brookfield Patch that he’s spoken “with hundreds” of state workers who recognized that the state will not be able to pay for the pensions.

Leaders of the collective bargaining units have said the state should look for ways to generate additional revenue.

Harding said at the very least, Lamont and the General Assembly should continue Malloy’s efforts to reduce the full-time work force, which is now 13.1 percent smaller than when the departing governor took office eight years ago. Apparently, much of that resulted through attrition. There have been no lay-off provisions in place in six of the eight years that Malloy has been in office.

Lamont told Brookfield Patch last July that he doesn’t want any layoffs and he wouldn’t reduce positions by attrition until a “forensic audit” is conducted of the state agencies.

With the projected $1.7 billion deficit for the next fiscal year, Harding said the only other apparent answer aside from further state employee concessions is to increase taxes, which he said he would vote against.

However, Hartford Courant political columnist Kevin Rennie, a former Republican state legislator, has stated that each of the last four governors – Lowell Weicker (ACP-Essex), John Rowland (R-Middlebury), M. Jodi Rell (R-Brookfield) and Malloy – have either said during their campaigns that they would not increase taxes and did so or proposed new taxes after never making reference to them during the campaign.

After four consecutive elections in which they added seats in both the state House and the state Senate, the Republicans in Connecticut lost seats in both chambers in November, which the GOP House delegation being reduced from 72 to 59 members. The state Senate, which had been even-Stephen at 18-all, will now have 23 Democrats and 13 Republicans.

“The results of the election had a lot to do with Washington, D.C.,” said Harding. “People were frustrated.”

He added that Fight Back CT, the Democratic voter outreach operation organized by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire) also helped garner more votes for the opposition party candidates. CTMirror has reported that Fight Back CT generated one million phone calls and 250,000 home contacts during the campaign.

CT Hearst business columnist Dan Haar wrote recently that Connecticut Republicans should “reject Trump outright” since he is “political poison” in the Nutmeg State.

Harding said he would not “condemn” the president, despite the many investigations of his former staff members and the resignations of key aides who have apparently departed in disgust.

“Some things he’s done, I agree with, such as fighting for the American worker,” Harding said. “Some things he’s done I’ve disagreed with.”

Harding said that despite again having a Democratic governor and now large Democratic majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, he believes that there will be a bipartisan rapport at the State Capitol.

Generally speaking, the General Assembly has been noted through the years for the cooperation between the two major parties. However, the were many conflicts in 2017 during a prolonged battle over the state budget, which wasn’t resolved until almost Halloween when it should have been completed before the high school graduation season four months earlier.

Harding commended Lamont for placing a number of Republicans on his transition team.

“He’s tried to make that group very diverse,” the state representative said.

Among the other constitutional officials, Harding said he has had a good relationship with Lembo, who will be starting his third term.

“He is smart, intellectual and an open-minded public servant,” he said.

Regarding the 107^th District, Harding said he plans to work with other members from the Danbury area in 2019 to acquire new money for proposed school projects in the three municipalities and help revitalize Bethel’s central business district.