Today was opening day of the 2008 regular legislative session. Opening day at the Capitol is always a day for ceremony and speeches. Today was no exception.
It was also the day for the Governor to give her annual state of the state speech and present her proposed budget and other ideas to the legislature. Governor Rell is a kindly and reassuring speaker, certainly good qualities.
The substance of her proposals were not very strong, though. For example, it looks like her budget proposal would hold education aid for New Britain to $4.3 million* less than in the bold education and property tax relief plan she proposed just last year. (That is, her proposal for fiscal year 2008-09.) With New Britain homeowners facing a revaluation this year, that $4.3 million would have been very helpful to support education while keeping people's property taxes down.
Her plan would provide Newington with $1.3 million* less than her education proposal from last year. While Newington just went through a revaluation, that money would have been very important for the Town Council to support local schools while holding the line on property taxes.
By her budget speech, it looks like she has no intention of approving a budget that comes even close to her proposals from last year, so it looks like her decision will keep municipal aid levels lower than I would like them to be.
While I am proud of increasing municipal aid to keep property taxes down and support important local services, like education. But, while fighting for these practical things to help property tax payers, I have been pressing for real property tax reform, to finally address the unfairnesses of the property tax system that place such an unfairly high burden on so many people. That is why I wrote a comprehensive property tax reform plan, which for a while was the only comprehensive plan being considered at the Capitol.
Fortunately, the interest in taking action on property tax reform has been gaining at the Capitol. A good sign is that Gov. Rell - who once referred to the call for property tax reform as a "false cry" - is offering her own proposals. Her proposals are lacking, but it is a good sign that she is talking about this issue.
Specifically, rather than addressing the unfairness of how we fund local services, if you read between the lines her plan is reduce local services, and lower working people's incomes.
If Gov. Rell's "tax cap" idea sounds too good to be true, it is because it is. Almost everyone I talk with about is asks me if her plan is really to keep property tax increases down to 3% per year. People in New Britain are asking this because of the very real concern that the recent property tax revaluation will cause their property taxes to go up significantly.
But that is not what Gov. Rell's plan is. If her plan is the same as last year's, it would do nothing to keep homeowners from getting hit with a huge revaluation-driven property tax increase. I asked her budget director this in a public Finance Committee hearing, and that is exactly what he said. I told him that the Governor's idea missed the real impact on homeowners, since New Britain's mill rate has been dropping, due mostly to increasing state aid. The revaluation, I pointed out is the real time when homeowners get hit with property tax increases.
I asked him if the Governor would support a plan that would actually keep homeowners' property taxes from going up more than 3% per year, and he said she would not. I really think the Governor, in all honesty, should explain that her "tax cap" would not really protect homeowners from unfair property tax increases.
However, I thank the Governor for stepping up to the plate on an issue - property tax reform - that has long been close to my heart. I will take her at her word that she is interested in finding a compromise that will really address the problems with our unfair property tax system.
*Correction February 8, 2008: When I first wrote this post, the numbers I cited were $8 million for New Britain and $3 million for Newington. Technically this is correct, comparing the Governor's budget proposals from this year and last, but municipal aid numbers sometimes leave the bottom line between different years and different proposal an apples-to-oranges comparison. That was the case, here. I realized that that the lower numbers, above, are fairer to the Governor, so I made these corrections. Sorry for the confusion. That said, the $4.3 million less for New Britain and the $1.3 million less for Newington are certainly significantly less than the Governor's proposal from last year, to which I wish she would hold her commitment.
