After holding its annual CBIA Business Day lobbying session at the state capitol, the Connecticut Business & Industry Association is eyeing some 80 bills it says could impact business in the early days of the session.
Those legislative efforts range from the mundane such as expanding the governor”™s nascent Small Business Express Program to include those with as many as 100 employees to the mammoth, such as a proposition to study a tunnel to Long Island and a toll-only upper deck on Interstate 95.
Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman vowed Gov. Dannel P. Malloy would deliver balanced budgets going forward, even as his administration eyes the spring”™s tax collections after an unexpected shortfall to close out last year.
“We see a little bit of dip in the revenues coming in; we are going to cut back on spending,” Wyman told CBIA Business Day attendees, with the proceedings broadcast to the state on Connecticut Network. “You are not going to see us going out without a balanced budget from now on.”
State Sen. John McKinney of Fairfield said the state remains mired in taxes, fees and other costs that are tamping down business expansion.
“I ran into an individual (who) bought a manufacturing company in Connecticut and because of his purchase of the business the Connecticut Transfer Act was kicked in,” McKinney said. “He was, at the time I talked to him, up to $480,000 in expenses to comply with the Connecticut Transfer Act ”“ maybe $80,000 to $100,000 of which he thought was worthwhile and good and he would have done as a new business owner, but the rest was wasteful.
“What could he do to expand his business and perhaps hire new employees with an additional $400,000 of investment in his newly bought business?” McKinney asked. “Those are the types of things we have never looked at.”
Given questions and comments from CBIA members, there remains tremendous concern about the business climate in the state according to spokesman Joe Budd, particularly given the introduction of minimum wage legislation. The second-biggest issue, Budd said, is education reform, with Malloy introducing a massive bill to overhaul the state”™s schools, including a provision to better evaluate teachers and create mechanisms to replace them if they are ineffective.
“One of the things that, quite frankly, drives me crazy is when I hear evaluation systems being talked about,” CBIA CEO John Rathgeber said. “They”™re always talked about in this building as if they are an ”˜I gotcha”™ test, you know, ”˜This is the way we”™re going to get rid of people.”™ There”™s not a businessperson in this room who has an evaluation system that is designed to drive people out of their workforce.”
CBIA members returned to their varying workplaces across the state with an admonition from Rathgeber and others to pressure their lawmakers and the Malloy administration to be mindful of business needs.
“We all subscribe to the view that there”™s power in numbers,” said Bill Purcell, president of the Shelton-based Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce.
