Danbury State Rep. Steve Harding Speaks on $3.5 Billion Deficit, 4 Corners Development and More

By Scott Benjamin

State Rep. Steve Harding (R-107) said that unless Connecticut restructures its labor costs, there will continue to be periodic budget deficits such as the $350 million gap that was closed during a recent one-day special session of the General Assembly.

Harding took office last February following a special election in the district, which includes Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a tiny portion of northern Danbury. He defeated former Brookfield Democratic Selectman Howard Lasser and succeeded Brookfield Republican David Scribner, who had held the seat since early 1999 before taking a position with the state Liquor Control Commission.

He predicted that there will be another “six-figure” shortfall before the current fiscal year ends in June.

“There was shared sacrifice among the residents of Connecticut,” the Brookfield legislator said of Gov. Dannel Malloy’s (D-Stamford) plan to address the $3.5 billion deficit he faced upon taking office.

“We had the largest tax increase in state history in 2011 and then another large tax increase in 2015,” Harding added.

“We have some great state employees, but unfortunately our bargaining units have been bypassed for shared sacrifices by our governor,” Harding declared.

Harding, an attorney, said though Malloy, who served as mayor of Stamford for 14 years, is accessible, he has been unwilling to adapt to the changing economy by reducing labor costs or addressing the state’s growing debt and pension obligations.

Harding said in recent years, Connecticut state public employee salaries have reached the point where some people want to get experience in the private sector so they can later obtain the higher-paying state jobs. Many of these jobs have fringe benefits that are more generous than those typically given in the private sector.

Harding said he agrees with other Republicans and Malloy that upcoming agreements with state employees should be voted on by the full General Assembly. Typically, the contracts with the state employee collective bargaining unit are only approved by the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee.

No state employee contract has been rejected by the General Assembly since January 1995 when a 19-17 party line vote in the Senate, when the Republicans held that chamber.

Harding said in a Dec. 18 interview that although having the full General Assembly vote on the contracts would be “a step in the right direction” it probably won’t alter the contracts. The reason being because the Democrats hold majorities in both chambers and several of them are supportive of the collective bargaining units.

He said the better solution would be to have members of the General Assembly join the Malloy administration officials in negotiating the contracts.

Malloy said during his re-election campaign in 2014 that he would not seek further concessions after getting some mild give-backs in 2011 in return for a four-year pledge of no layoffs for the state collective bargaining unit employees. Former Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R-Brookfield) got some mild concessions from the collective bargaining units in 2009 on a pledge not to lay off any state employees for two years.

Former Gov. John Rowland (R-Middlebury) laid off nearly 3,000 state employees in late 2002, but that decision was overturned in federal court and in 2015 the state agreed to a settlement of more than $100 million with the collective bargaining units.

Regarding the economic downturn, Harding said Connecticut was probably hit as hard as any state during the 2008 to 2010 recession.

“This is a very different economy than it was six, seven years ago,” he said, noting that, for example, a number of residents still have negative equity in their homes.

In Connecticut there has been a reduction in revenue from the capital gains tax, particularly among money managers along the Fairfield County Gold Coast, said Harding.

The 25 percent of the slot revenues that the state receives from the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos peaked about a decade ago at $450 million annually and declined in 2013 to $296.4 million.

Harding said there has been wage stagnation as there are fewer higher-paying jobs even as the state’s unemployment rates has declined to 5.1 percent, just behind the national average of 5.0 percent.

He said he agrees with Malloy’s call for increased employment in the bio-med, bio-tech, nanno-tech and fuel cell industries. The legislator added that he hopes the General Assembly will approved state Rep. Jesse McLachlan’s (R-Westbrook) bio-tech incentive zones legislation during the upcoming session to spur development in those areas.

During Malloy’s first term, much of the discussion on job growth related to his First Five/Next Five program in which the state would provide tax relief for large employers – such as Bridgewater Associates in Westport and ESPN in Bristol – to help them with their expansion plans. The state also provided funding for Jackson Labs to establish a bio-science center near the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.

Now the focus is on keeping General Electric’s world headquarters in Fairfield after the company expressed interest this spring in leaving Connecticut because of its tax burden.

On another topic, Malloy, who has drawn the ire of hospital executives for cutting their funding, signed the bill approved during the special session, which restored about $30 million of the $63 million that he had slashed from the budget in September.

“I don’t know what the governor’s problem is with the hospitals,” Harding said. “Some of them are struggling. Their top executives receive less compensation than people in similar jobs in the private sector and they also don’t have stock options.”

Regarding municipal issues, Harding said he is encouraged by first-term Brookfield Democratic Selectman Steve Dunn’s outreach during his early weeks in office.

He said he has had a number of meetings with him on state issues, including those related to the 198-acre Town District Center near the Four Corners and on the southern corridor of Federal Road.

Photo via Stephen Harding Facebook