House Speaker slams municipalities over budget blame game

HARTFORD » Whatever twoyear budget is finally approved by the General Assembly, it’s almost certain that a lot less state money will be going to the vast majority of the 169 towns and cities in the state.

And House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, for one, is frustrated with the state legislature taking all the blame for that fact.

Aresimowicz said Tuesday that legislators are “growing tired of local elected officials demanding that they be kept whole” while Connecticut is dealing with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

And when that can’t happen, Aresimowicz added, some town officials can’t wait to blame Hartford — saying “It’s their fault, it’s their fault, it’s their fault.”

The speaker said part of the problem is that some legislators have done such a good job over the past decade-plus of protecting their own legislative districts from budget cuts that the problem has compounded.

“At times municipalities have been able to avoid making difficult decisions because they had real good legislators that go out and fight for their towns,” Aresimowicz said.

He said they’ve kept towns whole largely since 2003.

“We take the blame for everything but we are the ones who are providing that financial security blanket to the towns,” he added.

Asked whether municipal officials were being unrealistic in their financial expectations.

“Yes,” was his one-word, blunt answer. Then he elaborated. “It’s unrealistic when the state of Connecticut is facing the fiscal issues we are. We cut almost $900 million last year,” Aresimowicz added. “There’s by many varying degrees $700 million in cuts on the table this year. We’ve reduced state agencies. We’ve reduced state employees. Our state employees are now taking 8 zeros (pay increases) since 2009, paying more into health care.”

Meanwhile, Aresimowicz said, there are “superintendents, town managers” getting healthy pay raises and towns still adding workers to their workforces, while looking to the state to “still keep the money coming.”

Connecticut Conference of Municipalities Executive Director Joe DeLong disputed Aresimowicz’s claims.

“If you exclude K-12 education, local general government expenditures in Connecticut ranked 50th out of all states and the District of Columbia,” DeLong said.