Lamont to seek minimum wage hike

BRIDGEPORT — Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget proposal next week will include an expansion of sales taxes on services and internet sales that are either exempt or have been tough to extract revenue from as more brick-and-mortar stores are losing out to online commerce.

Hundreds of millions of dollars would be collected if the Legislature agrees to end exemptions, Lamont said Wednesday morning after the opening ceremony for a community market in Bridgeport’s East End.

Later in the day, he announced support for a four-year phase-in to a $15 minimum wage, up from the current $10.10 per hour. Under the

governor’s proposal, the wage would rise to $11.25 in January 2020, with annual hikes of $1.25 until 2023, when it would equal the Massachusetts minimum.

Republicans responded with a series of proposals including an expansion of public-private partnerships. But with diminished minorities of 92-49 in the House and 23-13 in the Senate, their weight is less than the final two years of the recent Malloy administration.

“I’m going to welcome the Legislature,” Lamont said in the middle of usually busy Stratford Avenue, closed for the morning to celebrate a $250,000 grant from CVS and Aetna for the opening of a neighborhood market. “Look, they’re a co-equal branch of government. The way I would do it is I would hold the line on the sales tax and expand the base.”

Lamont said the digital economy and online sales are taking more and more consumer dollars.

“It’s fundamentally unfair that merchants on a street like this have to collect sales taxes while the big internet retailers didn’t, until recently,” Lamont said. “I’d say the same thing for digital downloads and the such. And I’m also thinking about the service economy and the ways, maybe, that they should participate. And if the Legislature doesn’t like it, I’d say come up with your own line. Maybe you can do something with the rates. But I want to hold the line on the sales tax.”

A new law that took effect on Dec. 1 requires large-scale, third-party sellers such as eBay and Etsy with more than $250,000 in annual sales and in excess of 200 transaction to begin collecting the 6.35 percent sales tax and paying the state. Amazon has been giving sales taxes to the state since 2013. Lamont said he never intended to expand the sales tax to groceries, as reported by some media outlets in recent days.

Lamont, whose first budget address will be Feb. 20, said his administration has been talking “very collaboratively” with state-employee unions as well as the teacher unions, whose massively underfunded pension program faces a $2 billion to $3 billion fiscal cliff within Lamont’s four-year term.

“The costs could be unsupportable over the next three or four years, and we’re negotiating to see how we can stretch out that obligation and reduce our annual costs, and save the pension,” Lamont said. He mentioned his recent announcement to cut the annual capital budget and reduce long-term borrowing by cutting the annual $1.6 billion in bond obligations by about $600 million a year.

Late in the afternoon, the governor reiterated his support of paid family and medical leave and the restoration of the state’s $200 property tax credit.

“Working families are central to our state’s success, and we need to do more to support their longterm financial stability,” Lamont said in a statement. “Most households in the 21st century have two working parents juggling responsibilities, including caring for infants and elderly and their own health. If we can assist them with these critical responsibilities in a way that also considers the impact on employers, we’ll have helped our future economic growth and done the right thing.”

Lamont’s plan for paid leave would establish a state-run trust, with 0.5 percent of their pay. There are already similar versions of the bill pending in the General Assembly.

Republican senators on Wednesday offered an expansion of state partnerships with private socialservice providers; the privatization of the Department of Motor Vehicles, and a new program for charitable donations to nonprofit agencies.

“By leveraging publicprivate partnerships we can offer better services at a lower cost and provide more dependable and reliable care for the most-vulnerable Connecticut residents,” said Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, RNorth Haven, reviving a previous plan to invest $65 billion for transportation infrastructure over the next 30 years. “By prioritizing investments in transportation, we can be more competitive with other states and create an environment conducive to economic growth and better quality of life.”

Another GOP proposal would promote the use of in-state subcontractors for the defense industry through the use of incentives.