Ganim’s governor’s race pledges echo mayoral promises

Joe Ganim has a complicated recent history of promising tax relief then claiming he cannot deliver it.

Still, the Bridgeport mayor, a Democrat running for governor, on Monday said if elected he would slightly increase the rebates offered through the state’s tax relief program for elderly/disabled renters.

“My thoughts are the (rebate) is $ 700 for an individual, (it would) go to $ 750,” Ganim said during a campaign stop at a Bridgeport low-income senior and disabled housing complex, Sycamore Place Apartments. “And $ 1,000 for a couple. It’s up to $900 right now.”

In bringing up the subsidies, Ganim also sought to mock his party’s gubernatorial nominee, Ned Lamont, a Greenwich businessman and millionaire who, the New Haven Independent reported, did not know about the rebate when asked during a campaign stop in that city last week.

“It highlights that whole ‘out of touch’ thing,” said Ganim, who is awaiting word from state officials whether he gathered enough petition signatures to force an August primary with Lamont.

Lamont, according to the Independent, reportedly indicated he would support the rebate program were he elected governor.

“We’re currently balancing the budget on the backs of people who can least afford it,” Lamont told the website.

Echoes of Ganim’s mayoral campaign

If Ganim’s campaign rhetoric about increasing a benefit for beleaguered taxpayers rings familiar, it echoes some broken promises Ganim made in 2015 when the then-former mayor, who held office from 1991 to 2003, successfully convinced Bridgeport voters to return him to City Hall.

At that time, Ganim campaigned on increasing the tax credits the city provides the elderly and the disabled through a socalled circuit breaker prop- erty tax relief program.

“As mayor, I will immediately take the initiative to have the city more than double and expand the current program to raise the amounts of tax credits as relief for senior citizens and the disabled,” Ganim said in September 2015.

That never happened. Ganim, in that same campaign, had also pledged on his lawn signs to “stop raising taxes.” But the 2016-17 municipal budget — the first he and the City Council passed upon Ganim’s return to office — increased the city’s tax rate from 42.19 mills to 54.37 mills, one of Connecticut’s highest.

The mayor’s subsequent two budgets have not increased the tax rate beyond 54.37 mills.

Ganim on Monday blamed that 2016 tax increase and his inability to make good on his senior/ disabled tax relief pledge on the $20 million deficit his administration has said it inherited in 2015 from predecessor Mayor Bill Finch: “We talked when we first got in (about tax relief) and ran into the Finch deficit debacle.”

Diverted to rainy day fund

But when the council voted on the 2016-17 budget, members had set aside $2 million in contingency to provide some form of targeted tax relief. Ultimately, the extra money was instead sunk into Bridgeport’s rainy day fund.

Ganim’s finance chief, Ken Flatto, in an interview Monday, recalled that the rainy day account at the time needed to be bolstered in order to avoid a financially damaging downgrade to Bridgeport’s credit rating.

Flatto also argued that while the Ganim administration never increased the local circuit breaker program, the city has continued to offer a related state tax break to seniors and the disabled despite the fact Connecticut reduced how much it reimburses municipalities for the lost taxes.

Asked if voters in the governor’s race could trust him to keep his pledge to increase the state’s renters’ rebate, Ganim said, “Yes.”