The Shared Responsibilities

Of Smart Governments

The major political currents in Connecticut and all of its 169 towns and cities are created by the tidal ebb and flow of money and responsibility to and from the state. When the state has money, municipalities look to Hartford for more funding for education, or grants for municipal capital projects, economic development, or open space. When the state doesn’t have money, it cuts back its support to towns and cities in all these areas, passing both the responsibility and political liability for underfunded local priorities back to town officials.

At the moment, the state has a lot of money. The anticipated state budget surplus of $700 million to $800 million has excited legislators on both sides of the aisle to seize the moment for a couple of worthwhile causes — both of them politically charged. This week, a group of freshmen Democrats in the House proposed the creation of a special trust fund by the state, using surplus funds, to help finance universal health care in Connecticut. Meanwhile, Republicans in the Senate, seeing how the economy has driven extra revenues to the state through its income and sales taxes, have tailored a property tax relief initiative that would enable municipalities to impose their own income or sales taxes if they agree to abandon the property tax.

These two legislative proposals are aimed squarely at two worthy and popular goals — decent health care for all citizens and escape from a local property tax system that literally causes some people to flee their own homes. These ideas have been conceived at a time when the economy is generating the kind of revenues that make everything seem possible. The public interest needs to be served in good times and bad, however, and the merit of these proposals needs to be evaluated in the context of the worst of times as well. Consider the fate of our Social Security trust funds, for example. They have been tapped to finance our out-of-control national debt. And Connecticut’s income tax was supposed to eliminate the need for the state sales tax. Good ideas don’t always work out the way we intend them to.

While money will always be the lifeblood of both public and private enterprise, success depends only in part on how money is spent. The key for long-term success in any enterprise is how money is saved. The efficiency and economy that will ultimately address some of our most difficult problems, including universal health care and the growing burden of property taxes, will come from creating a better system of governance than perpetually shifting financial and political liabilities from state to towns and back again, depending on whether a surplus casts a shadow in any particular year.

State government and Connecticut’s towns and cities need to forge a more cooperative relationship for addressing shared challenges. When it comes down to it, all the big ones — health care, education, infrastructure, public safety, and economic prosperity — are shared challenges. And to that end, new regional partnerships, like those proposed earlier this month by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, can foster the type of “smart growth” that will extend the benefits of economic development tax revenues well beyond the closest town line. Regional partnerships will also limit the community-killing effects of sprawl. The benefits accrue to the state, the region, and to the towns. State officials need to start thinking like local officials, and local officials need to consider the big picture.

The people of Connecticut have earned a reputation for being both prosperous and intelligent. Money doesn’t make us smart, but intelligence will help keep us prosperous.