As I witness New London's budgetary struggles it makes me think, "What ever happened to property tax reform?"
For years property tax reform was the big thing in Connecticut's public policy debates. Editorial pages, including this one, demanded it. Lawmakers said they would champion it. But like many big, difficult issues, the discussion never moved much beyond the rhetoric and the reports.
When the Great Recession hit and the state confronted an historic budget crisis, suddenly no one was talking about property tax reform. The state could not pay its own bills, never mind figure out how to assume more of the expenses from towns and cities so they could lower the property tax burden.
I thought about this because New London's fiscal problems are, most fundamentally, the result of Connecticut's property tax system. Though small by city standards, New London has all the expenses that come with being an urban center. It needs a paid fire department to protect its densely developed neighborhoods, many filled with older housing. It needs a paid police force to assure adequate public safety.
New London has a lot of public housing. Like most urban centers, a larger percentage of its populous is low-income as compared with its suburban neighbors, requiring more public services. These same demographics provide an additional challenge for its public school system.
The primary means to pay for these services is the property tax system, which is a lousy choice for New London. With about 5.5-square-miles of land, there is not enough property to tax. The city has no industrial park and no where to develop one. Its commercial real estate is relatively small. Trying to create more commercial property to tax was the motivation for razing an old neighborhood in the Fort Trumbull section to make way for redevelopment. That didn't work out well.
