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Our city would receive $3,154,916 less in state funding than it did last year, under the budget that the Democratic controlled legislature is poised to approve in this week's special session. Middletown's cut in funding is the most extreme, BY FAR, of any municipality in the state.
Cuts to education
State education funding will go down by 3.4%. For Middletown, most of this cut is in the support provided for transportation.
Our city was spared the most extreme cuts, wealthy towns are losing the entirety of their Educational Cost Sharing grants. Greenwich, for example, would see a 65% cut in state education funding.
Cuts in other municipal aid
Cities and towns also receive grants that are not education-related, including from the Municipal Revenue Sharing Account (MRSA), Payments in Lieu of Taxes on state and non-profit institutions (PILOT), and gambling revenue from the tribal-owned casinos (PEQUOT). Middletown stands to receive $2.4M less from these sources of revenue than we did last year, a nearly 20% reduction.
Boom or bust
Last year, the city received a windfall from the state, when PILOT funding went up by 54%. This year, our city is being referred to in the capitol as, "the biggest loser," according to a senior aide to a Statewide elected official.
Not only is Middletown the most severely impacted city in the state, it's not even close. The cut to our city of $3.2M is about double that of the next most severely impacted city. Greenwich would see its aid cut by $1.6M, Fairfield is in third place, with a cut of $1.2M. Some cities actually would receive substantial increases in funding, Glastonbury and Stratford an increase of $600K, Danbury an increase of $1.6M, and Stamford an increase of $2.6M.
The CT Mirror article has complete listings for all municipalities.
Let's not forget about the new mill rate cap on motor vehicle property taxes, further reducing revenue...they SAY they're fund the revenue loss with a grant, but who has confidence that's actually going to happen?
ReplyDeleteWhat can citizens of Middletown do about this?
ReplyDeleteCybermom:
ReplyDeleteCall/email your state representatives, and call/email the governor's office.
Probably nothing now. Apparently no one from Middletown in the General Assembly has any pull. Need to elect better representatives in the general assembly to prevent more of this happening. November awaits.
ReplyDeleteDid you see that Matt Lesser wasn't even there because he was giving a speech about student loan debt? Really????
ReplyDelete"...Rep. Lesser is out of state at a conference where he is a featured speaker on Connecticut’s Student Loan Bill of Rights."
ReplyDeleteI bet the students who are graduating with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt think it's pretty important.
Sorry "Anonymous", we elected him to vote on important legislation and the most important vote, affecting all of the residents in the State of Connecticut was a close one, and he wasn't there. The student loan debt isn't going away in a day, so I'm sure that could have waited. The vote on the budget is over, there's no going back and he was intentionally absent.
ReplyDeleteCertainly Matt Lesser should have realized many months ago when he committed to giving a keynote speech on a date after the end of the legislative session that the legislature would be unable to pass a budget during the regular session. How dare he make a commitment that could conflict with a vote not yet scheduled, after the scheduled close of business. He should always sit at home, next to his phone, ready to immediately go to Hartford when summoned by leadership.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, the Democrats knew that they had the votes needed to pass the budget without Lesser's vote. It should be noted that only 144 out of 151 legislators voted on the budget. At least Lessor had a reason to miss the vote.