This week the Associated Press analyzed Connecticut’s state debt and observed, “Connecticut is one of the smallest states, with 3.4 million residents, but it borrows as if it’s Texas, New York, Illinois, or Michigan.” In the ten years between 1992 and 2002, bonding for capital projects in the state increased nearly 74 percent. Interest payments alone cost $1.3 billion a year — more than the state spends on health care and hospitals or prisons. With ongoing state-funded development projects in all corners of the state, including ambitious plans to rebuild all the state college campuses and a $2 billion investment at the University of Connecticut, the state’s appetite for debt isn’t about to be satisfied. Somewhere along the line, our elected officials in Hartford decided that it was better to borrow and spend than tax and spend.

Restoring trust and respect for Connecticut’s state government may prove to be the easiest challenge faced by Governor Jodi Rell in the two years before the next gubernatorial election. With towns struggling to keep property tax rates under control, and the state borrowing a billion dollars or more in some years to meet its obligations, it is clear that fundamental fiscal reforms are in order — reforms that will help both state and local government better plan and control their expenses.

One of the reasons cited for Connecticut’s intractable debt problems is that Connecticut, unlike most other states, has no county governments to coordinate spending or to raise money. In the coming years, the state needs to expand the role of the Connecticut’s 15 regional government councils to better plan and coordinate regional land use policies that lie at the heart of so many of our property tax woes and state grant allocations for regional infrastructure, education, and public services. Having towns and their respective state representatives compete with each other for state grants for projects that duplicate facilities and services available within the region is not the most efficient way to allocate scarce resources.

Thinking regionally will not necessarily spell the end of Connecticut’s cherished tradition of home rule. The existing regional government councils are composed of the chief elected officials of each town, who are keenly aware of and highly motivated to address local challenges. Bringing more decisions and responsibilities from the state level to the regional level will only result in more power for the towns — not less.