A day after his second debate – the first televised – with Republican Tom Foley, Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Wednesday detailed cost-cutting measures he pushed in his first term that will save the state billions of dollars down the road.
Speaking during a morning candidate forum in the Hilton Hartford before about 120 members of the Metro Hartford Alliance, he said that combining agencies and departments and negotiating big changes in post-retirement benefits for state employees were major departures from past practice.
Malloy, who stood on the podium for an hour, answering questions and diving deep into public policy, said that in 2010, state unions agreed to a seemingly minor change, which has big effects. In the past, early retirees could lose 3-percent a year in benefits if they retired early. Many saw a negligible effect. Malloy succeeded in upping the loss to 6 percent a year and many employees are staying on the job..
“I am responsible for every problem in the state even if it existed before I became governor,” Malloy quipped at the start of his visit, referring to Republican Tom Foley, who will speak to the Alliance next week. “And I’m not responsible for any of the progress we made because that was all by prior governors. Having said all that we’re making progress.”
He pointed out accomplishment including 1,500 new units of housing under construction in downtown Hartford; and the deal to keep United Technologies in Connecticut; an energy department that will get 250,000 new residential customers for natural gas over the next few years; getting state aid to 1,600 businesses; helping create 60,000 private sector jobs.
“We are seeing more rapid job growth on a sustained basis than we’ve seen at any time since the 1990s,” he said, recalling the $3.6-billion deficit that confronted him when he took office in January, 2010. It resulted in a record hike in taxes, but unlike other states, New York in particular, Malloy stressed he did not shift the tax load on cities and towns.
“I’m not responsible for a single police officer, fireman, teacher, public works official, nurse being fie by a municipality because I took a problem I inherited and I shifted it to municipal government,” Malloy said in the third-floor function room of the hotel. “We probably protected our safety net to a much higher degree than other states did…. New York’s highest tax rate is 8.87 and now New Jersey is 8.98 and our highest tax rate is 6.7. We have massive opportunities to use that as a tool to further accumulation of wealth, which I think it going to drive investment and expenditures in Connecticut.”
Foley will speak to the group at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, October 7 in the Gershon Fox Ballroom, 960 Main Street, Hartford.
