🔒Auriemma’s pro-growth message right, but will it resonate?

Just when we thought the circus around Connecticut's fiscal crisis couldn't get zanier, Connecticut's most famous sports celebrity took to Hartford's capitol hill last week to throw jabs at lawmakers for failing to make the state a more desirable place to live.

UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma was hired by the Connecticut Realtors to give a pep talk to an industry whose vocation has been made much more arduous by the state's lack of economic growth and the negative media attention it has drawn.

Connecticut, mired in a fiscal crisis, sadly boasts one of the slowest-growing economies in the nation and one of the few states in the U.S. that has seen its population shrink in recent years. That, of course, makes it tougher to attract people to live and buy a home here. Individuals and their families migrate to job centers, and Connecticut certainly is not one, particularly compared to nearby Massachusetts and New York.

Although Connecticut home sales hit a nearly decade high last year (32,235 homes traded hands vs. 29,644 a year earlier), median home prices on average are 17 percent below their 2007 pre-recession peak of $295,000, according to the Warren Group, a startling loss of homeowners' wealth.

Auriemma, of course, was an interesting choice by Realtors to deliver their message. As the second-highest paid state employee (he made $2.1 million in fiscal 2016) whose direct employer (UConn) has received billions of dollars in state investment over the last few decades, Auriemma has certainly benefitted from state government's largesse.

Even still, the accomplished coach is a popular and sharp-tongued motivational speaker who can deliver a tough message that just might resonate with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Auriemma's main message was for legislators to work as a team to solve the state's fiscal crisis and reshape Connecticut into a state that is able to compete more aggressively in recruiting jobs and people.

To do that, lawmakers will need to pass a pro-growth state budget that doesn't raise taxes or the cost of living. It's a task looking more impossible as Connecticut's deficit — which has ballooned to nearly $5 billion over the next two fiscal years — only worsens.

Even still, the business community, which ultimately attracts people to the state through job and career opportunities, will not take kindly to another round of tax hikes. Just last week, Connecticut's business climate was ranked fifth worst in the nation by the influential Chief Executive Magazine, whose readers, you guessed it, are among the nation's top CEOs.

The state's tax and regulatory environment were the main drags on the ranking. One CEO lamented that Connecticut's biggest challenge is its “location between New York and Boston, as well as a poorly run legislature on both sides of the aisle.”

Those even mildly informed about the state's fiscal situation wonder outwardly or internally whether they can have a prosperous future in Connecticut. In recent years, more people have decided they can't and have pulled up stakes to migrate south. And those employed here who might be able to buy a home may be thinking twice, given the specter of rising local property taxes.

As Auriemma told the crowd of 2,000 Realtors and state lawmakers, they're all in the recruiting business and “When people have a choice, you better give them a reason to pick you, not to sit back and wait for them to pick you.”

Despite its top-notch quality of life and highly educated workforce, Connecticut, for too long, hasn't given enough people or businesses the confidence to choose our great state.