Snowstorms in Connecticut always produce rueful chuckles when the radio announces that the governor has told “inessential” state employees to stay home or go home early, time off for which they are paid regardless. Those who are not on the government payroll wonder how government work that is “inessential” in bad weather becomes vital when the sun is shining again.
But now that state government’s finances have collapsed with the state’s economy, and the stark choice facing Connecticut is between taxing the state into oblivion or restructuring government, it may be time for state government to act on the lesson of the snow day, to start defining “essential” as the dictionary does. Such a definition becomes more compelling as government services for the neediest in society are among the first to be classified as “inessential” — as, for example, Governor Rell has just notified the families of 3,000 mentally retarded and otherwise handicapped people, most of whom struggle to live at home with their families, rather than in institutions, that they are about to lose their treatment managers.
Almost anyone could browse through the Connecticut State Register and Manual and find agencies whose work is not as important, work that could be liquidated in favor of continuing to care for the disabled. Unfortunately the governor and General Assembly have not yet gotten around to such a review; they haven’t even enacted a state budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. If they cannot enact a budget in time, the governor may gain the power to settle budget matters by decree, to decide on her own what state government will continue to pay for and what payments will be suspended.
If that power does fall to her, the governor should seize it and wield it as if it is going to snow in Connecticut around the clock for a few years.
With the disabled being thrown into the street and the governor ruling by decree, maybe then Connecticut could do without, for starters, the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.
With the disabled being thrown into the street, maybe then Connecticut would not just freeze municipal teacher compensation as state employee compensation has been frozen but reduce it to a realistic level.
With the disabled being thrown into the street, maybe people at the Capitol would ask how much drug criminalization Connecticut can afford, or how much welfare childbearing outside marriage.
And then maybe some of the social-service groups that get state grants to serve the poor would do what one of their advocacy organizations, Connecticut Voices for Children, did the other day: rummage through the state budget for the spending that might be considered inessential on snow days.
Connecticut Voices for Children studied state government’s touted tax credit for entertainment industry productions undertaken in Connecticut and concluded that only 11 percent of the $113 million in tax credits awarded so far have reimbursed expenses incurred in Connecticut. The remainder of the tax credits, or more than $100 million, subsidized expenses incurred out of state, according to the Connecticut Voices for Children study.
And while the entertainment industry recipients of the tax credits have had little tax liability in the state, the tax credit law allows them to sell their tax credits to companies that do have state tax liability, causing a huge revenue loss to the state, a tax expense.
The study says the state has awarded $2.73 in tax credits for every dollar spent in the state, a terrible return on public money.
Maybe Connecticut Voices for Children has misinterpreted the data on the tax credits, which it obtained from the Commission on Culture and Tourism. But the amount of money at issue is so great that state government is obliged to review the tax credit issue urgently, before raising taxes. Since the legislature summoned itself into special session as soon as its regular session ended, there should no obstacle to conducting such a review quickly. It is only a matter of political will.
But then despite the collapse of state government’s finances, the legislature, during its session just completed, could not bring itself to study any important issue of state government efficiency, nor question any long-established spending policy.
Maybe, if the legislature’s default empowers Governor Rell to budget by decree, the resulting horrors at last will prod the legislature into doing some useful work.
Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
