by State Senator Dan Debicella

The Governor has signed the two-year Connecticut budget into law, and it is a good one for Shelton. Like any compromise, it is not perfect—but will benefit taxpayers and students in Shelton for years to come. The budget contained two huge wins: Shelton will receive a 7% increase in state aid, and it will not cost a penny in increased income or sales taxes

For years, Shelton has been penalized because of our local success. The state has cut our Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) grant by over 70% over the past decade as economic development has made Shelton a “city of choice” in Connecticut. I am proud to have worked with Representatives Dick Belden and Larry Miller to finally reverse this, and get Shelton a fair increase in its ECS grant.

Shelton will receive an additional $200,000 in ECS funding this year, and $400,000 next year—a two-year increase of 9% above the $4.5 million we received last year. Shelton can use this however it wants: to decrease property taxes, increase education spending, or on infrastructure improvements.

We did this without a major tax increase. I fought vigorously against proposals to increase the income tax or expand the sales tax. We have a $900 million surplus this year, and there was no reason to raise any taxes. Of course, that did not stop some politicians from proposing them! The Democratic leadership wanted to increase not only the state income tax, but also the state sales tax on clothes and the sales tax on some items used for funerals. I joined with
my Republican colleagues to propose a “no new taxes” budget that did not raise any taxes, but maintained
Governor Rell’s historic increase in state aid for education. In the end, we passed a state budget that did not increase either the income or sales tax, and looked a lot like the budget that my colleagues and I proposed.

The budget also enacts my job-creation proposal. The General Assembly unanimously passed my legislation to provide tax credits to corporations that create ten new jobs in a year. Businesses will receive a tax credit equal to 60% of each new worker’s state withholding tax, thus encouraging companies to create thousands of new jobs.

We also passed legislation that includes $17.6 million for Shelton’s new 5/6 school. The state will pay 42% of the construction cost, thus reducing the liability on Shelton’s property taxpayers.

In the coming weeks, I hope to have even more good budget news for the Shelton. We are currently working on a
$3 million bonding authorization for infrastructure relating to downtown redevelopment, and I hope to pass my $50 million proposal for flooding prevention throughout Connecticut in July.

This is not a perfect state budget—it was a compromise that still contained some provisions I did not like. For starters, while we held the line on most taxes, we did increase the cigarette tax from $1.51 to $2.00 a pack – a tax increase that I believe is both unnecessary and unfair. Furthermore, the General Assembly did not seize the opportunity to provide some much needed relief by enacting my proposal to eliminate the 25-cent per-gallon gasoline sales tax and reducing the state income tax for the middle class.

I also worry that our government spending continues to increase at an unsustainable rate—up 8.6% next year. I do not know about your household, but mine cannot increase spending by 9% a year without eventually finding new sources of income. We need to get state spending under control. I would have preferred to pass a budget that looked for efficiency gains in government and kept the spending increase within a range of 3-4%, but the Democratic leadership refused to even consider my proposals to cut back on spending increases.

Next year I will reintroduce my proposals to cut taxes and slow government spending. Again I will propose lowering the income tax for the middle class, and lowering the gas tax—and to pay for this by restraining the growth of government programs.

But, overall, this year’s budget cannot be considered anything but an outstanding success for Shelton. We will be getting a 7% increase in state aid, and it will not cost a penny in increased income or sales taxes. That’s a win for all of us.