State Rep. Godfrey Says Big Businesses Don't Want To Move To Suburban Connecticut

By Scott Benjamin

State Rep. Bob Godfrey says Connecticut’s problem is that if you're young, highly-skilled and looking for an innovation hub where you can earn a high salary and party 'til the wee small hours you’re unlikely to find it in the Nutmeg State’s suburbs.

“Big businesses are not looking for suburban campuses anymore,” he said. “Connecticut profited mightily from businesses coming, like Union Carbide coming from New York City [in the late 1970s] to Danbury, because they wanted suburban campuses. That trend is over. Now we’re seeing GE go from suburban Fairfield [where it had been since 1972] to big-city Boston.”

“The people they want to hire live in Boston,” Godfrey said regarding Connecticut’s recent economic woes. “The companies are not looking for raised ranches with a picket fence and a dog and a cat. I think it’s the reason for a lot of the economic problems in Connecticut.”

CtNewsJunkie columnist Susan Bigelow has stated that between 1976 and 1988, the state added 400,000 jobs. Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford) has noted that Connecticut and Michigan are the only states with fewer jobs than they had in 1989.

“Millennials decide where they want to live and then get a job there, usually in a city, and decide who they want to work for because the big cities have a lot of options to choose from,” said Godfrey, a Democrat who represents the 110^th District, which covers much of downtown Danbury. “Businesses are moving to where creative people want to live.”

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote in his 2015 book, "America Ascendant," that two-thirds of the college-educated millennials live in the nation's 51 largest cities.

The Boston Globe recently reported that Connecticut’s suburban character is “a natural disadvantage” when you compare the resources of many college campuses in metro Boston with a population of 5 million to the six campuses in the metro New Haven area, where the total population is 850,000.

The Globe stated that since 2000, 50 percent of the new jobs in Massachusetts have required highly-skilled workers to just 6 percent in Connecticut, which used to be the “economic kingpin” of New England.

University of California-Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti wrote in his 2012 book “The New Geography of Jobs” that the higher-paying positions are in the innovation hubs, such as the Route 128 corridor around Boston. Reportedly, by 1990 Massachusetts had 3,000 high-technology firms.

He has stated that in the metro Seattle area the average salary at Microsoft, including factoring in those of the secretaries and custodians, is $170,000 a year and there are 4,000 alumni that own businesses. If you’re not interested in working at any of those options, then you might try getting a management position at Amazon or Starbucks.

Moretti wrote that for every innovation hub position there usually are over time up to five additional positions added to the economy of a metro area and two of those are typically high-paid positions, such as a physician or attorney.

Perhaps Connecticut’s lack of innovation hubs explains why so many of the positions added since the end of the recession have been lower-paying.

“Development has meant turning farms into huge residential developments [in the suburbs over the years],” Godfrey said in an interview. “It equals sprawl. It’s bad for the economy, its’ bad for the environment and it’s bad for job creation.”

“Meanwhile, we have completely ignored our cities,” he said. “People aren’t looking to move there. And therefore businesses are not looking to move there.”

“We have no viable cities that attract large creative groups,” added Godfrey, who was elected to his 15^th term last fall and is a deputy House speaker.

“We’re stuck in a suburban mindset,” he lamented. “Ten years ago West Hartford developed a nice city center that was attracting millennials and a creative class and the neighbors complained that those people are up too late, they make too much noise and we have to stop businesses from serving liquor after 9 p.m. That’s the kind of attitude that will continue to kill the kind of expansion and the kind of job creation that Connecticut needs.”

Many of the jobs created over the last 25 years have been entertainment-related as a result of the two Native American casinos and television production.

However, competition has hindered the casinos, which are not contributing anywhere near the $450 million in slot revenues to Connecticut’s treasury that they were about a decade ago.

Connecticut benefitted from the move of Blue Sky Studios’ animation operation to Greenwich and the establishment of NBC Sports and the YES network in Stamford. Additionally, ESPN has about doubled the size of its staff on the Bristol campus since 2000, according to The Hartford Courant.

However, Godfrey said the sports network, which is considered to be the most profitable cable-related enterprise in the nation, is losing subscribers as more people choose a al carte and on-demand options.

Malloy and the General Assembly also voted in 2011 to provide $292 million to bring Jackson Labs to the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington for bio-science research in hopes of establishing an innovation hub. The company began operations in 2014.

To generate more jobs, Godfrey wants to get more state funds to fuel innovation at the hackerspace on Main Street in Danbury, which has become a hub for local residents with an idea for starting a small business. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and state Rep. Steve Harding (R-107) of Brookfield also have expressed optimism for the future of the hacker space.

“The state needs more of them,” Godfrey said.

Regarding recent developments in the local economy, the state representative said despite the recent layoffs at Boehringer-Ingelheim, which moved its world headquarters from Germany to Danbury in the late 1970s, he believes the company will continue to expand in the future as various product lines and research expand.

Godfrey said he is upset that the state didn’t award two recent energy procurement contracts to Fuel Cell Energy, which is based in Danbury and Torrington, or another of the state’s fuel cell providers to further “nurture” the development of that alternative source. Fuel Cell Energy recently laid off 96 employees.

The biggest hurdle for the General Assembly session that starts Wednesday will be resolving a projected $3.1 billion budget deficit for the two-year cycle that starts in July. That number may grow since the state has been contributing more money since Malloy took office to employee pension funds that had been underfinanced for decades.

Boughton has estimated that the shortfall will exceed $4 billion.

CT Mirror has reported that Ben Barnes, the secretary of the Office of Policy & Management, the governor’s budget arm, has indicated that the administration will seek concessions from the state employee bargaining units.

State Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano of North Haven has said the collective bargaining units have the Democratic caucuses in a “hammerlock” when it comes to making substantive concessions.

Godfrey said he disagrees. “They have helped us in the past, and I expect them to be cooperative,” he said regarding possible negotiations between the governor and the bargaining units.

However, Boughton and Harding have said that there were $300 million in concessions made by the collective bargaining units as part of the governor’s 2011 shared sacrifice plan that were never realized.

“There were concessions made that were never followed-up upon by either side, which is a shame,” said Godfrey.

CTNewsJunkie columnist Terry Cowgill has written that 25 percent of the state employees make no contributions to their pension plans and the rest pay just 2 percent when the national average for state workers is 7 percent.

“When the private sector treats its employees badly, I don’t think that’s reason for the state to treat its employees badly, too,” Godfrey declared, making an apparent reference to the lack of the more expensive defined benefits pension packages among private companies.

He said he is “content” with the current state employee pension system.

“[Bargaining unit concessions are] not going to make up 100 percent of the [projected budget deficit],” said Godfrey. “There’s going to have to be more.”

He said part of the answer would be “close corporate loopholes on the revenue side.”

He said a recent report from the Office of Fiscal Analysis, the General Assembly’s budget division, indicated that Connecticut’s corporation tax represented 20 percent of the state tax base in 1989, but only 6 percent during the current fiscal year.

Would he vote for a tax increase to offset part of the deficit?

“Only on the super rich,” said Godfrey.

Godfrey said the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Top 1 percent pay the smallest share of taxes of any demographic group.

“I will not increase the sales tax,” the state representative said. “That’s regressive.”

But you supported across-the-board tax increases in 2011 and 2015.

The state representative said most of his constituents didn’t have to pay much more in those two instances. His district is mostly middle class, 42 percent Latino, one-third of the residences have someone age 60 or older in them and there are a high number of single people.

Since there are signs that Malloy will join Republican leaders in seeking significant concessions from the collective bargaining units as pension costs crowd out spending for social services and higher education, Godfrey conceded that, “I will be pleasantly surprised if we have a budget that I am pleased with by the end of the session in June.”

The GOP and the Democrats each have 18 seats in the Senate, a gain of three seats for the Republicans, and the Democrats lost seven seats during the November election in the House. They now hold a 79-72 majority.

He said some Democratic colleagues have said, “‘Just go with the Republicans and go home. ‘”

Godfrey said, “I will never do that.”