Return To Connecticut
Florida Has Lower Taxes, But Connecticut Is Better In Many Other Ways
Florida isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Why one couple moved back when many are moving out.
After 13 years in Palm Beach County, Fla., my wife Pam and I decided to move to Connecticut. We’re back in my hometown of Middletown, where I once served as mayor and state representative.
We’re doing the opposite of what many people in our age group do — trading warmth and low taxes for colder, higher-taxing Connecticut.
And, just as Florida justifiably enjoys its reputation for low taxes and lots of sunshine, it’s no secret anywhere in the nation that Connecticut has both snow and financial woes.
I’ve followed the Connecticut news closely since I moved two decades ago to Texas and then Florida. I’ve kept in touch and visited with family and friends. I’ve come back for my Wesleyan University reunions. I’ve rooted from afar for the UConn women’s basketball team. And, as a retired state employee, I literally have a vested interest in the health of the state government.
I understand there is a crisis of confidence in the state that goes beyond election season rhetoric. I can see how difficult it has been for talented elected officials across the political spectrum to lay out a clear, optimistic path forward.
So, why would I overlook all that and come back?
It’s just this. I’ve lived in other states, and I still work inside the D.C. beltway. I have learned that behind the sunny postcard images, every state has its challenges.
Take Florida, for example. If you want to live near the beach — like most people there — then the cost of housing is a lot higher than you might think. Our property taxes were low — just $3,500 this year, one third of what they’ll be in Middletown. But the cost of insuring our home near the beach is five times the cost of insuring our Middletown home.
So, for taxes and insurance combined, we’ll pay around $1,000 a month in either place. But insurance dollars offer only one thing — insurance. We get a lot more services for those tax dollars in Middletown.
Despite Connecticut’s reputation for poor road maintenance, Middletown’s roads and sidewalks are in far better shape than those in our Florida town, Lake Worth, which has just begun improving its infrastructure. Here, police presence is greater, the parks are better maintained, the downtown city core is more vibrant and more social services are available.
We’ll have better access to high quality health care in Middletown, which we’ll need as we grow older. The Palm Beach County health care systems employ great people, but they aren’t rated nearly as high as those all around us in Connecticut. In Florida, our closest highly rated teaching hospitals were four hours away.
Public schools in Connecticut are better funded, too. Schools are often the focal points of
“What’s special about Connecticut is the willingness of its people to face its problems squarely and engage in lively debates about how to solve them.”
Paul Gionfriddo
Connecticut neighborhoods, accessible to residents on weekends and evenings. In Palm Beach County, schools having fewer resources, teachers get lower pay and school grounds are locked and fenced off from their neighborhoods.
Then there’s income inequality. Palm Beach County ranks sixth in income inequality in the nation — higher than any county or metro area in Connecticut, which, ironically, has a reputation for income inequality.
Income inequality is a real problem. It is often at the heart of existential questions about government itself. Very wealthy people don’t really need much from the government, but very poor people need a great deal. When you’ve got a big split between rich and poor, you tend to have huge battles about the actions of government. The result is often no action at all.
Connecticut has its problems. But this hardly makes Connecticut unique. And every state has great people. So, Connecticut isn’t unique that way, either. But, in my experience, what’s special about Connecticut is the willingness of its people to face its problems squarely and engage in lively debates about how to solve them.
I didn’t return to Connecticut with many solutions of my own — although balancing budgets, reducing partisanship, and sharing the burden of paying for needed services as widely as possible is a good start. Maybe the final answers will elude every generation. But living among people who continue to search for them is invigorating.