House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield, in a brief interview just said she is no longer pursuing changes to the formula that determines how much money municipalities get from the Pequot Fund casino grant.
The Advocate and other news outlets in recent days reported that Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the legislature’s Republican Minority were concerned about Merrill’s effort to insert the change at the tail-end of the budget process, particularly because it would likely result in every other city or town losing some (albeit in many instances very tiny) amounts of cash.
Merrill has argued the change corrects some odd language in the grant formula which penalizes Mansfield for UCONN’s recent growth, despite the fact the small town needs any additional funds it can get to help offset the costs of having the school as a neighbor.
“The fact the result in this one case is everybody loses but one town, and the fact that town is represented by the majority leader of the House doesn’t look good,” Cafero said earlier this week.
“It was an effort to discredit me and I take very much offense to it,” the mild-mannered Merrill told me today.
Merrill said she decided to abandon the proposal because she has since learned Mansfield might not be harmed by the current formula over the next year or so.
But she maintains the formula should still be changed and she intends to pursue that during the 2010 legislative session.
Cafero today told me his criticism was not meant to besmirch Merrill’s reputation and she might even have a legitimate concern about the Pequot Fund formula.
“What I’m saying is ‘you picked a heck of a time to do that’,” Cafero said.
New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, a Democrat whose city stood to lose over $32,000 to Merrill’s change, did not return requests for comment when I wrote the initial story earlier this week. But he was at the capitol today so I asked him for his thoughts.
DeStefano said $32,000 is not “a signficant amount for us” but he added it is better for any changes to the Pequot Fund to be discussed in hearings during the regular session.
