The Connecticut Business & Industry Association is setting its sights on the labor shortage, economic development and tax relief for small businesses and individuals heading into the 2022 legislative session.
In a statement of policy priorities released late last week, the business lobbying group said it will focus its energies on long-standing issues that have been exacerbated and made clearer by two years of pandemic-related tumult. That list includes the apparent shortage of workers in the state, below-average GDP growth and underperforming infrastructure that is increasing costs for businesses.
“We are grateful for the progress that we are making as a state in managing and navigating the pandemic,” the organization said. “The 2021 legislative session, which saw the adoption of a number of CBIA’s policy recommendations, did much to position Connecticut for a strong recovery. Our 2022 policy priorities represent the next step in that journey — solutions-based recommendations targeting the numerous challenges ahead, designed to sustain and build on the momentum of the past year.”
Likely most pressing is the labor shortage, which has bogged down the state’s recovery from COVID-19 and exacted a heavy toll on restaurants and retailers. A recent poll conducted by the CBIA found that 80% of responding businesses reported difficulty in hiring and retaining employees.
Specifically, the CBIA said it would encourage lawmakers to exempt workforce training programs from the state sales and use tax, expand the state’s manufacturing apprenticeship tax credit program to include small and midsize manufacturers and enhance workforce development efforts for incarcerated and returning citizens.
On the economic development front, the group is asking the legislature to repeal the corporate tax surcharge, use pandemic relief funding to decrease the state unemployment fund’s $1 billion debt and support the development of laboratory space for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
The CBIA is also proposing expanding the state’s research and development tax credit to small businesses, exempting safety and personal protective equipment from the sales and use tax, streamlining state government operations and giving the state Department of Transportation more flexibility in contracting and outsourcing to contain costs and expand private sector participation in infrastructure development.
The organization had touched on similar themes in its 2021 list of priorities. It spent much of that year’s session battling measures it viewed as hostile to business and growth, including laws it charges are transferring union-like employment rules into the state’s private sector.
Connecticut’s legislative session begins Feb. 9.
