Harding is optimistic about state reimbursement funds for HHES

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – The Lamont debt diet may include the governor eschewing banana barges at the ice cream shop along tony Greenwich Avenue, the admission to Bristol’s splashy Lake Compounce and the exclusive championship seats behind home plate at majestic Yankee Stadium.

But it apparently will not impact state reimbursement funding for the most expensive public project in Brookfield’s 231-year history.

State Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield says the town has “met all the deadlines” since the $78.1 million was approved in March at referendum for construction of a new Huckleberry Hill Elementary School (HHES) and he is confident it will be on the state Department of Administrative Services (DAS) list in December for consideration next year by the state Bond Commission.

Harding, 31, a Brookfield native, had said this spring that he had some reservations about the project getting a 22.5 percent grant – which would reduce the total municipal payments to $63.3 million.

Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) announced this winter that the state would start a debt diet to save $700 million a year and improve its credit rating. Since taking office he has only called one state Bond Commission meeting at which a meager number of items were approved.

“Based on discussions with DAS officials [the debt diet] is not going to pose a problem for the Huckleberry project,” said Harding, whose district includes all of Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Danbury.

Construction on HHES should begin next year and be completed in late 2022.

Harding said this winter that although he strongly supported re-prioritizing the bond spending to fund transportation infrastructure projects he thought that Lamont and the Democratic legislators would probably secure enough votes to install toll gantries on the Schuyler Merritt Parkway and Interstates 84, 91 and 95.

“My opinion has completely changed,” Harding said in an interview. “I don’t think the votes are there.”

CT Mirror reported shortly after the close of the regular session of the General Assembly that there appear to be enough votes to get the governor’s tolls plan approved in the House, but in the Senate there are 14 Democrats that support the initiative, four hard no votes among Democrats and four Democrats that are persuadable. All Republicans in the General Assembly have indicated they are opposed to the plan.

Thus, under current conditions, Lamont would have to get all four of the persuadable senators to support the plan to get an 18-all tie and have Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (D-Middletown) then cast the deciding vote.

During the recent regular session of the General Assembly, Harding voted against Lamont’s proposed $43.4 billion state budget for the two-year cycle that will start July 1, largely because it reduced the number of tax exemptions.

However, he said that he believes that in contrast to the tattered packages that were approved under former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) – Lamont’s immediate predecessor – he doesn’t “see the red flags in the revenue raisers that I had seen in previous years.”

Harding said he is optimistic that the budget will remain balanced throughout the two-year cycle.

“Before you would see revenue estimates that made no sense and when you asked an administration official about it no one seemed to have an answer,” he explained.

“The economy seems to be doing better regarding revenue reliance,” Harding added. Consumer spending has increased over the last year as a result of Republican President Donald Trump’s tax cut.

The legislator said he is not precisely sure what the impact will be on the state’s economy from the recent merger of defense contractors Raytheon and the state’s largest private-sector employer – the United Technologies Corporation (UTC). Reportedly about 100 management workers will be transferred from the current UTC headquarters in Farmington to Boston.

It appears that all of the UTC manufacturing plants in Connecticut, including Francis Pratt and Amos Whitney in East Hartford and Electric Boat in Groton, will remain in the state after reaching long-term contracts about five years ago with the Malloy administration.

CT NewsJunkie has reported that Lamont has gotten assurances from UTC that it will hire an additional 1,000 workers over the coming years at Pratt & Whitney and keep the headquarters for its Otis Elevator division in Farmington.

However, Harding said he is concerned about a trend away from defense spending in the federal budget.

Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson stated recently that over the last 60 years defense spending has declined from 52 percent to 15 percent of federal spending as a number of social programs have been added.

“That is potentially harmful to the state,” Harding said. “Much of our economy, particularly in the southwestern part of the state, is based on defense spending.”

During the regular session, Harding voted against two bills that were high on organized labor’s profile and were approved by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.

He said the Family Medical Leave Act is “a great concept” but he gets calls weekly from constituents about how difficult it is to support themselves. Thus, he said he couldn’t take “half a percent” from every worker’s paycheck to fund the program.

“If we could have done it within the existing budget, I would have supported it,” Harding said.

The legislator also voted against the gradual increase of the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2023.

“I understand the proponents and why they support it,” said Harding. “However, every economic study says it impacts in a negative way many of the people you want to assist.”

He said Wal-Mart, Burger King and McDonald’s “have enough resources to utilize artificial intelligence to replace workers” when there is an increase in the minimum wage.

Regarding higher education, Harding said he supports the Board of Regents “Students First” plan in which there would be fewer top-level administrators as regional presidents would oversee the 12 community college campuses instead of a president being assigned to each institution.

Mark Ojakian, the president for the Board of Regents, introduced the plan more than a year ago to address projected budget deficits in the system. Although the New England board did not agree to adopt the plan immediately it left open the option for further consideration and Ojakian has taken steps to get the proposal implemented.

That has resulted in votes of no confidence in Ojakian, the Board of Regents and the Students First plan from five community college and two state university faculty groups.

Harding said he has acquired enough information to form a position in regards to the votes of no confidence.

Enrollments have been declining at many colleges across the country and Tim Herbst, the former first selectman of Trumbull who sought the GOP gubernatorial nomination, has said the next Great Recession will result from college student loan debt that can’t be repaid.

Former Democratic President Barack Obama said in 2013 that higher education had reached a crisis, largely due to being unaffordable for many middle class Americans.

On a separate subject, Harding offered a mixed review of Lamont’s early months in office.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who has run three times for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, has said that to be successful in government you have to keep your word.

Harding said Lamont indicated during the campaign last year that he would only seek tolls on out-of-state trucks and then in February announced that all vehicles would be subject to tolls under his plan.

“I realize that it is a different perspective when you take office,” he said. “However, he was breaking his promise almost immediately.”

Former state Sen. Jamie McLaughlin, a Republican from Darien who formerly lived in Brookfield, has said that most successful elected officials develop a rapport with their colleagues. He has noted that when former Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R-Brookfield) was the state representative from the 107^th District she frequently would be having breakfast with other legislators before the session and then attending functions that night. He has said that many legislators were eager to co-sponsor her legislation.

Harding said that Lamont “seems to be more open that Gov. Malloy in creating bonds.”

However, he said the current governor has not had meetings with the various geographic legislative delegations to get insight on the issues important to their particular constituents, which reportedly was a common practice before Malloy took office in 2011.

Television producer Chris Whipple in his 2017 book, “The Gatekeepers,” which provided insight into the job of chief of staff to the president, wrote that the gold standard for the position was James Baker, who told former Republican President Ronald Reagan when he was wrong.

How has the staff work been in the Lamont Administration?

Harding said the governor brought in a number of aides who were either new to state government or had been away from the State Capitol for some time.

“There are some fresh ideas, which is a good thing,” he added.

He said former state Sen. Jonathan Harris (D-West Hartford), who sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination last year, was dispatched to the legislative chambers over the final weeks of the regular session and “it made a difference” in relations between the legislators and Lamont.

George Edwards, the presidential scholar at Texas A&M, has said that a government chief executive should focus on two or three items at a time and recognize that you often can’t generate major alterations in public opinion.

Harding said Lamont not only tried to do too much too soon, but focused on the wrong issues.

“He should have been trying to mitigate the projected budget deficit without increasing taxes and working on restructuring labor agreements,” he said.

Such gubernatorial candidates as Boughton and third party contender Oz Griebel of Hartford said last year that with a report indicating that there were $100 billion in projected unpaid fringe benefits over the coming years, that issue would be the primary focus for the next governor.

Instead much attention has been placed on whether to impose highway tolls.

Harding said there were minor savings on health care benefits for the larger state employee collective bargaining units in the budget, but that there were labor agreements approved during the session with some of the smaller bargaining units that included salary increases and did little to alter future benefits at a time when the state faced a budget deficit.

He acknowledged that there probably will be no realistic opportunity to reform salaries and benefits with the larger bargaining units until the end of the current pay freeze in June of next year and the conclusion of the no-layoff clause in June 2021.

Labor leaders have maintained that their members have already made considerable concessions. A report commissioned by the state Office of Policy & Management indicated that the 2017 contract agreement represented $24 billion in savings over 20 years.

Despite enacting many pieces of legislation this spring, the lawmakers will return soon to Hartford.

CT Mirror has reported that Lamont plans to meet with legislative leaders later this month to discuss scheduling the special session on tolls.

Maybe the determining factor would be if Lamont, a Yankees fan, could secure support from the team’s manager and fellow Greenwich resident Aaron Boone.

However, Harding, who also is a Yankee fan, said even though he admires Boone, that wouldn’t change his opposition to the proposed tolls plan.