Newtown Invited To Join ‘Union Of Towns’

By John Voket

Finance Board members from Oxford and New Milford were in Newtown this week pitching officials about joining a consortium to counter organized labor lobbying in Hartford. Leaders of the Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility (CMCFR), including New Milford finance board chairman George McLaughlin, Jr, spoke to local finance officials Monday requesting a resolution of support that would align Newtown with more than 80 other communities already pledging membership to the group.

The consortium was formed just about a year ago, Mr McLaughlin explained. The impetus for the organization was to gather “strength in numbers,” to oppose paid lobbyists who flood the state legislature with special interest support. The group believes that labor-driven legislation is primarily responsible for the upward creep of local mill rates that have gone from an average of two and three percent in the 1990s, to five and six percent or more in recent years.

This year’s municipal budget increase of more than seven percent contains more than a $250,000 increase for employee health insurance, and the school district’s proposed employee benefits increase exceeds a $500,000.

Mr McLaughlin said the organized lobbying efforts all too often result in new initiatives that benefit union workers exclusively, often at the expense of taxpayers who are forced to underwrite the increased costs of what the neighboring finance official described as “unfunded mandates.” The group’s founder, Granby finance official Michael Guarco, concentrates the blame on what he refers to as “unbridled compensation” resulting from binding arbitration.

Mr Guarco has contended that while arbitration judgments are beginning to inch closer to a “level playing field,” arbitrators still tend to favor unions when awarding increased pay and benefit rulings against Connecticut municipalities.

Richard Burke, who was on hand Monday representing the Oxford Board of Finance, suggested that when lobbying in favor of key labor issues is expected, the CMCFR wants to be positioned to mobilize dozens, possibly hundreds, of citizens and officials from across Connecticut to counter the effort. He believes that move, in effect, will prove to lawmakers that there is true voter-based opposition to special interest legislation that may counter an otherwise rubber stamp vote supporting union proposals.

“Too often when the legislators go to Hartford, all they see are the unions,” Mr Burke said. “We want them to see a union of towns.”

According to Mr McLaughlin, the grassroots group could be afforded additional advantages in accessing lawmakers to assert opposing arguments, because the CMCFR requires no paid membership or dues. If the group required any type of financial buy-in or dues from its member towns, it would in effect become a lobbying entity itself, and would be subject to state regulations on lobbyists.

The CMCFR is currently building consensus, Mr McLaughlin explained, looking first to local finance boards from every Connecticut town and city to commit to membership. While several state communities have either contributed similar resolutions from top executive officials, local legislative leaders and school boards, the CMCFR is eventually seeking the support of all four entities in every town and city.

In its early stages, the group has adopted a three-part agenda:

Leveling the playing field under binding arbitration.

Raising the cost thresholds on capital projects under prevailing wage laws.

Prohibiting new mandates placed on towns until state government meets its own existing funding commitments to towns under current law.

Mr McLaughlin told local finance officials Monday that the CMCFR is adopting a similar goal on the prevailing wage law as the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, an organization coincidentally headed by Newtown First Selectman Herb Rosenthal. Both groups are calling for a three-year moratorium on the prevailing wage law.

He said municipal construction costs considering the current prevailing wage statutes can add between four and 30 percent to the cost of projects because construction companies bidding on these jobs must meet state mandated basic wage and benefit packages that are almost equal to union scale.

“Right now the threshold is $100,000 for a renovation and $400,000 for a new construction. In today’s world that doesn’t even cover the bonding costs,” Mr McLaughlin. “We need to bring the thresholds up to 21st Century dollars — we’re looking at $5 million for everything.”

In relation to bringing local municipalities parity under mandatory binding arbitration, the CMCFR eventually hopes to influence changes in the current laws that will give local legislative bodies more than a single opportunity to reject the arbitration, or to go back to negotiations like the state is allowed to do with its labor unions.

Mr McLaughlin also hopes for a change that will allow local legislative bodies the right to reject stipulated arbitration.

He said there is little objection to date over the group’s goal to prohibit unfunded mandates, especially in educational initiatives.

Ultimately, by bringing all 169 state municipalities together under this “union of towns,” Mr McLaughlin hopes to bring representatives from each town together when called upon, to speak in one voice. He said the momentum is growing, with several regional school districts and numerous governmental organizations adding support along with more than 20 new towns endorsing the group’s mission in the past three to four weeks.

“There’s strength in numbers,” Mr McLaughlin said. “Those who oppose us have paid lobbyists who show up at the legislature in droves. They’ll have two or three hundred people who show up to speak against these, and we’ll show up with half-a-dozen. And the legislature is not impressed. We want to match the opposition mano y mano with bodies and endorsements.”

The Newtown Board of Finance has put discussion and possible action on its endorsement of the CMCFR on the agenda for its next meeting.