Package Addresses Concerns of Municipal Elected Officials, Property Taxpayers, Group Leaders Say
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations and the Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility today endorsed Governor M. Jodi Rell’s two-year budget proposal, saying it addresses the concerns of taxpayers and local elected officials from throughout Connecticut.
Susan Kniep, President of the Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, and Michael Guarco, who heads the Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility and is the chairman of the Granby Board of Finance, announced their organizations’ support for the governor’s budget proposal at a news conference Friday hosted by state Representative Arthur J. O’Neill, R- 69th District, who serves on the state legislature’s budget-writing Appropriations Committee.
“The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations extends our congratulations and sincere appreciation to Governor Rell for her leadership on the 2010-2011 Budget for the State of Connecticut. Her reforms will serve as a catalyst to control local property taxes,” Ms. Kniep said. “We urge the state legislature to resist the temptation to increase taxes as a way of eliminating the projected $1.35 billion deficit for the current fiscal year and to pass the governor’s budget without major changes.”
“The Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility supports provisions of the Governor’s budget that help stabilize the local property tax burden by maintaining most state aid categories at the current year’s levels, and by putting some focus on the impact of unfunded and underfunded mandates placed by the state on the towns. Strengthening the local ability to manage our own municipal fiscal affairs more effectively and efficiently is critical to the efforts of municipal officials to moderate property tax growth in Connecticut,” Mr. Guarco said.
“I support the goals of the taxpayers’ organizations and Governor Rell’s efforts to prevent tax increases,” Representative O’Neill said.
