Community Corner

CCM: Connecticut's Property Tax System is 'Unsustainable'

In a new report The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities says comprehensive reform is needed.

This article was reported and written by Eileen McNamara.

Connecticut towns rely far too heavily on an unsustainable and regressive tax system to support their budgets, a system that is in need of “comprehensive reform,” the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities says in a new report.

In its recently released study, “The Challenge of Financing Local Government in Connecticut,” CCM, the main lobbying group for the state’s cities and towns, says Connecticut’s tax system, and its increasing mandates, force towns to put the majority of the tax burden on residential property owners.

In addition, the group says in its report, most towns are spending 70 percent of its locally-generated tax revenues on education, but the state is cutting the amount of education grants it provides towns while increasing costly mandates on them.

Nearly 60 cents of every local tax dollar raised by towns goes to pay for education, CCM says in the report, making Connecticut more dependent on the property tax to fund education than any other state in the nation.

“Education finance reform is the key to property tax reform,” the report states. “Connecticut needs to take a look at comprehensive reform of the state‐local revenue system.”

CCM’s study comes at a time when Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has proposed eliminating one of the stalwarts of the local revenue stream; the tax on motor vehicles.

Malloy has recommended that the legislature eliminate the tax on all vehicles valued at less than $28,000, a move he says would provide middle class tax relief.

Town leaders, however, have rallied against the proposal, saying it would cost individual towns millions of dollars in revenue each year, money that would have to be made up by increasing property taxes more.

Other highlights in the CCM report include:

  • 19 municipalities rely on the property tax for at least 90 percent of their total revenue
  • 70 municipalities rely on it for at least 80 percent of their total revenue
  • 113 municipalities rely on it for at least 70 percent of their total revenue
  • The local property tax is the only significant revenue tool the state allows towns and cities
  • The state has consistently failed to meet its share of the state‐local funding partnership, particularly in education
  • The state has placed additional burdens on communities in the form of unfunded and underfunded state mandates, as well as allowing some property tax exemptions
  • The state lacks a consistent, stable revenue sharing program


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