Tomorrow – Wednesday – March 6, 2019
9:30am (please plan to arrive early to find parking and go through security)
Legislative Office Building
300 Capitol Avenue
We are invited to join the Governor, local and legislative leaders, labor and business leaders who will talk about the importance of upgrading our infrastructure.
Strong attendance is key to securing Connecticut’s transportation programs!
CT transportation authority proposal ‘worse than just tolls’
Christine Stuart
HARTFORD — As the legislature gets closer to approving tolls, it’s also distancing itself from the process by debating legislation that would create a transportation authority, like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“I don’t understand why anyone wants to be like the MTA in New York,” Joe Sculley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, told the Transportation Committee Monday. “They have sky-high tolls … and they’re $38 billion in debt.”
Sculley was testifying on a bill that would “create an authority dedicated to overseeing and prioritizing transportation projects.”
Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, said the bill was added to Monday’s public hearing agenda because Monday was their deadline to have a hearing on proposed bills. He said the concept is also included in other bills that more directly deal with revenue ideas like tolls to fund improvements to Connecticut’s roads, bridges, and rail.
Sculley said if these transportation authority’s are so great then how come none of them have any moneyHe also asked why the state of Connecticut would want to “abdicate” all of its control to an unelected board that’s going to establish tolls on almost every highway in the state?
“This is worse than just tolls,” Sculley said. “If people want tolls then put up a tolls bill and just vote for it don’t try to go through this quasi-government body.”Another bill that will receive a public hearing on Wednesday calls for the establishment of a Connecticut Transportation Finance Authority.
The Connecticut Transportation Finance Authority would have control over bond funds and tasked with coming up with a five-year capital plan for the state and would be required to establish a Connecticut Infrastructure Bank. Once a toll system is implemented the legislation would allow the authority to set the toll rates.
“This is not representative government,” Patrick Sasser, head of No Tolls CT. “This provision allows the state to impose a massive tax increase on the people of the state without even holding a vote. It’s another example of how tolls are being forced on us.”
Sasser said the authority would be able to raise the toll rate without a vote of the General Assembly.
“This is not what Connecticut — the Constitution State — is about,” he added.
Sculley said when “you set it up so that blame can be deflected” that’s not “what most people in the state of Connecticut want.”
But the Special Transportation Fund will be in deficit again by 2023 under Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget proposal if the General Assembly doesn’t do something like tolls to increase revenues to the fund.
“I think we have to consider all options when we’re talking about how we address the sheer number of bridges that are rated deficient and in substandard condition. When we’re looking at the thousands of lane miles that we have that we can barely pave potholes on nevermind maintain to a 21st century standard,” Lemar said. “... We need to find the capacity to invest in the future.”
How that investment takes place or how the revenue is raised is still open to debate. A public hearing on tolls will be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. in room 1E of the Legislative Office Building.
“I’m open to what that structure would be that would be the most efficient, responsible use of tax dollars that come into the state,” Lemar said.
Sen. Alex Bergstein, D-Greenwich, has proposed an infrastructure bank as a way to leverage public-private partnerships and lower the amount it costs Connecticut to pave a road.
Bergstein said it’s a financing model that’s been used in Europe and Asia for decades.
She said it would leverage over $80 trillion in private investment dollars and allow Connecticut to deliver projects at a lower cost through better credit ratings on the bonds.
As part of his first budget proposal, Lamont canceled the $250 million transfer of general obligations bonds to the Special Transportation Fund and proposed freezing the new car sales tax transfer. Internal documents from the Department of Transportation say $2 billion a year is necessary to keep up with current maintenance and construction, but Lamont’s administration has yet to release a list of canceled projects believing that it can continue at the current pace without additional funds.
Don Shubert, president of the Connecticut Construction Industries Association, Inc., has said the governor’s proposed cap on transportation bonding “will curtail programmed projects and exacerbate the deteriorating condition of our transportation systems. It will shut down projects that will address congestion and safety.”
With infrastructure needs aplenty, Lamont eyes public-private partnerships for new development
Matt Pilon
"Public-private partnership" can sound like an overused buzzword with a murky meaning, but Gov. Ned Lamont is looking to get much more specific.
In fact, the governor's administration is seeking to do away with several hurdles it says have effectively blocked such partnerships, called PPPs or P3s, from becoming a reality in Connecticut.
If the legislature plays ball, the changes — which have already been pitched in a bill introduced last month — could open up possibilities for a wide range of public-private projects, from the construction of university dormitories and train stations to the redevelopment of the XL Center, and yes, highway tolls.
The aim of PPPs is to use private capital to finance and build major public infrastructure projects. The investors earn a return, while cash-strapped governments put less long-term debt on their books and complete projects that might otherwise have taken longer, or not happened at all.
For Lamont, public-private partnerships could help finance a bevy of projects that may lose a funding source after he recently pledged to cut annual state borrowing by 39 percent.
P3s, however, aren't free money and come with taxpayer risks, experts say.
"This is really the start of a larger conversation about public-private partnerships," said Paul Mounds, Lamont's chief operating officer.
A majority of states have some kind of enabling public-private partnership legislation, but many, like Connecticut, limit their scope.
For example, Connecticut caps the length of any PPP at no more than 50 years; limits the public portion of the funding at no more than 25 percent; and requires various reports and other information to justify the existence of the partnership.
Current law also limits PPPs to development of facilities related to early child care, education, health, housing and transportation. Projects must also generate revenue (and draw other funding) sufficient to cover their cost, maintenance and operation.
There was no real legal avenue for PPPs in Connecticut prior to a 2012 law championed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, which greenlit the executive branch to enter into agreements with private entities to finance, build and operate a limited set of facilities.
However, Mounds, who previously worked for the Malloy administration, said that law is limited in scope.
"This legislation has a broader scope, with the understanding that we don't know all the various partnerships that could come about," he said.
One thing Lamont hopes to see is a P3 for the development of several new train stations, including one in Newington, on the Hartford Line — facilities for which the state has not identified funding.
The exact mechanism through which a private partner would recoup its investment in such a facility is not known, but a recent Pennsylvania train-station project, 10 miles outside of Harrisburg, allowed a private partner to build and operate shops and parking around the facility.
Nationally, a few other examples of recent P3s include:
• Construction of a major new civic center in Long Beach, Calif., which is nearing completion, with the city trading valuable downtown land for apartments and other development in exchange for more than $500 million in new public buildings financed by a team of private, long-term investors, according to the Los Angeles Times.
• In 2015, Pennsylvania bundled hundreds of bridge construction and repair projects into an approximately $900 million P3, according to accounting and consulting firm PwC, one of the first deals of its kind in the country.
• Universities in New Jersey, Georgia and Kentucky have used P3s to build student housing, while Purdue University and its home city of West Lafayette, Ind., forged a $73 million P3 in 2016 to transform a key thoroughfare into a pedestrian-friendly urban hub, PwC said.
Learning curve
While P3s have been evolving around the country in recent years — and expanding to new types of projects beyond a historic focus on roads and bridges — they still represent a small portion of infrastructure projects, experts say.
"It's been a slow, incremental hill that's being climbed," said Darin Siders, a PwC partner who leads the firm's infrastructure advisory practice.
There's also the inevitable controversy connected to P3s.
"The historic controversy with respect to P3s was this perception that you were selling or giving away this thing that belonged to the citizenry," Siders said.
But the partnerships are not true privatization, he said, as states typically own the assets in the end, after an agreed upon period of time, usually three or four decades.
He said transparency is key in P3 deals, as they often face scrutiny from the public and lawmakers.
While PPPs have often focused on tolls in other states, Mounds said Lamont has his eye on a broader array of projects.
Lamont's bill is likely headed to a public hearing in the next few weeks in the Government Administration and Elections Committee.
Committee co-Chair Mae Flexer (D-Killingly) said there's a "delicate balance" to strike in any consideration of P3s.
"Clearly we've got to do more to get the law working as it was envisioned when it was first drafted, and the state needs private investment in a variety of areas," Flexer said. "At the same time, we've got to make sure we're good stewards of public dollars and we've got to make sure there are public protections and oversight of these projects."
Whether Lamont's proposed tweaks will open the floodgates for P3s in Connecticut remains to be seen.
Lamont's bill would alter pieces of the current law, including removing provisions that limit a P3's lifespan to 50 years and cap the amount of state funding for a given P3 project at 25 percent.
Neither of those restrictions are currently a major roadblock, said Michael Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority, which has been looking for a P3-type arrangement to renovate XL Center in Hartford.
"But they were unnecessary hurdles, and we're trying to attract capital, not frustrate it," he said.
Lamont's bill may not be a panacea for the XL Center, which is in need of a major overhaul or rebuild, according to Freimuth.
"However we change the law, the economics need to make sense and this will remain a challenge for private investors to achieve the desired ROI on their monies for projects like the XL Center," Freimuth said.
However, he said a change to the P3 law could bring potential for the rundown Hartford Regional Market, which CRDA is now in charge of, after a recent legislative directive.
CRDA last year sought redevelopment proposals for the rundown Regional Market, receiving two, from FreshPoint and Sardilli Produce & Dairy Co.
Freimuth said quasi-public agencies like his have a bit more flexibility than regular state agencies when it comes to PPPs, but there are still limitations. He called Lamont's proposal a "significant upgrade" to the state's public-private partnership statute.
Availability payments
If Connecticut lawmakers can pass a game-changing bill, it'd likely allow for what are known as "availability payments," said PwC's Siders.
"They de-risk the investment for a private investor," he said.
To understand availability payments, take the example of a road construction project whose main revenue stream is tolls.
According to the federal transportation department, a tolled "concessions model" would allow a private investor to build the road and then be repaid via tolls revenue. The developer would bank on its traffic projections being accurate, taking a financial hit if they're overly optimistic and toll revenues come in lower than expected.
Under an availability payments model, the investor isn't dependent on toll revenue. Instead the state would agree to make periodic payments to the investor based on a set of agreed upon performance specs for the road. The state would keep the toll revenue, and the associated risks of variance if projections are off.
Approximately half of P3s in the U.S. over the last decade use the availability payments structure, according to the not-for-profit In The Public Interest (ITPI), and the pace has quickened in recent years, according to Siders.
Availability payments have downsides, according to ITPI, which warns public officials that they are still long-term financial commitments that can carry serious future budget implications.
Students urged to consider careers in trades
HARRISON CONNERY
WATERBURY – When Trevor Gursky, 20, was a high school student, he didn’t know a bright future awaited him as an electrician.
Teachers and counselors ingrained in him that a college degree is necessary for a financially stable life, so he enrolled at Naugatuck Valley Community College.
“It was never ‘what do you want to do,’ it was always ‘what college do you want to go to,'” he said. “I did a semester at NVCC and halfway through I knew I didn’t want that. I couldn’t see myself doing that for four more years and doing a desk job.”
After dropping out he enrolled in an electrical program at the Industrial Management and Training Institute in Waterbury.
“My father, he’s a carpenter. I worked with him whenever he needed help, here and there, and I really enjoyed that,” Gursky said.
Far from committing career suicide, Gursky is on track to enter a profession with a hot market and good pay. The average annual wage for an electrician in Connecticut is $57,000 but unionized electrical contractors can make over $60,000 per year during their apprenticeships and graduate to a salary over $90,000, according to Kevin Tighe, executive director of workforce development and labor relations at the National Electrical Contractors Association, an advocacy group for the electrical contracting industry.
Yet the trades are unable to recruit enough workers to avoid a severe national shortage, which is putting stress on industries that rely on them like construction and manufacturing.
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“It’s pretty clear that we’ve got an epidemic issue,” said Greg Ugalde, president of T&M Building in Torrington and chairman of the National Association of Home Builders.Ugalde said the shortage could be as severe as 280,000 workers nationwide.
A NAHB survey released last year found 83 percent of builders reported raising home prices because of the labor shortage, an increase of 22 percent from 2015. The same survey found 37 percent of builders reported a serious shortage of carpenters, 17 percent reported serious issues finding electricians and 15 percent had trouble finding HVAC workers.
Tighe said NECA projects 20,000 new job openings among its member businesses each year for the next 10 years.
Eric Brown, vice president for manufacturing policy and research at the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, said the shortage in Connecticut has translated into 10,000 open manufacturing jobs.
“This is an opportunity for Connecticut to expand it’s middle class, increase its tax base and really, really drive some momentum into our economy,” he said. “If we can’t meet the labor needs, those jobs are going to go elsewhere.”
A common culprit, according to industry professionals and advocates, is a lack of advocacy for the trades at the high school and college level and an overemphasis on sending kids to college.
“Our industry’s challenge is not to be the best kept secret anymore,” said Tighe. “College is not for everybody and being in a trade is not for everybody, but there’s a heck of a better opportunity than people are aware of.”
Waterbury Superintendent of Schools Verna D. Ruffin said she has been meeting with industry groups to design programs that make students aware of opportunities in trade programs.
“How do we partner with those trade schools and how do we work on getting students certifications while they’re still students in high school?” she said. “We need to do more in our schools than just offering an elective course, we need to make it a career path.”
Catherine Awwad, executive director of the Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board and a Waterbury Board of Education member, said a lot of students who go to trade schools end up going to college instead of entering the workforce, which exacerbates the issue.
“They go there thinking ‘I’m going to be an electrician’ and leave thinking ‘I’m going to be an electrical engineer,'” she said.
Brown said high schools can be disincentivized from recommending careers in trades by evaluation metrics that track how many students enroll in a college program after graduation and judge the school accordingly.
Two bills proposed in the state Senate, S.B. 856 and S.B. 854, seek to correct that by requiring the State Board of Education to consider manufacturers’ workforce needs when evaluating public schools’ educational programs and by requiring schools to hand out materials concerning manufacturing, military and law enforcement careers to students.
Marcel Veronneau, CEO and founder of the Industrial Management and Training Institute, said enrollment is down 20 percent over the past 10 years, despite offering what he says is for many kids a preferable alternative to an expensive four year college degree.
“What happened is that high schools are pushing college,” he said.
Courses at IMTI range from 37 to 78 weeks and cost about $21,000. Students graduate with the certification necessary to enroll in apprenticeships in the electrical, plumbing and HVAC industries. The school has an 86 percent placement rate.
Veronneau said it’s too early to tell what the long-term consequences of the labor shortage will be, but one short term effect is higher wages for tradesmen.
“The average contractor probably charges $85, $90 per hour,” he said.
Gursky’s classmates in an afternoon class about electric circuits on a recent Wednesday afternoon agreed they were under-informed about opportunities in trade.
Robert Karcher, 24, also left NVCC for a career as an electrician after he didn’t take to college.
“I just saw myself spending money on classes I didn’t really need and I chose a path of work and saw the trades and how much they’ve been succeeding lately and how much opportunity is in it, and that really sparked my interest,” he said.
Audit transportation dollars before considering tolls
Timothy M. Herbst
I recently had the privilege of representing residents in eastern Connecticut that were opposed to the construction of the proposed state police gun range immediately adjacent to Pachaug State Forest. I personally thanked Gov. Ned Lamont for keeping his word in opposing this project. In politics, you are only as good as your word. That is why Lamont must also keep his word and not institute tolling on cars in Connecticut.
Leaders in Hartford are missing the mark when it comes to tolling. They always seek to find alternate revenue sources through taxes or fees before first examining priorities, spending habits and internal financial controls. The advocates for tolling are the same people who believe they are entitled to put in for mileage reimbursement when they aren’t even driving their cars to the Capitol. They also think their mileage should be used to pad their pension.
You wouldn’t let some of these people manage your household budget and it is horrifying that they make decisions with billions of dollars of your money. While the Republican minority is fighting the good fight, they need help from we, the people. Before the taxers and the takers institute tolls, the taxpayers of Connecticut have every right to know how current transportation dollars are being spent and, in fact, wasted.
Long ago we were told that instituting a gas tax would solve our transportation problems. We were told that increasing this tax was critical to meeting the demands of our crumbling infrastructure. In the last legislative session, transportation advocates told us not to cap bonding and dedicate an additional half percent of the sales tax to transportation improvements.
Shortly thereafter, then Governor Malloy canceled critical transportation improvements claiming we did not have the capacity to fund these projects. Through this empty rhetoric, nearly four of every five miles of Connecticut’s major roads are either in poor or mediocre condition, with 57 percent rated in poor condition. Every $1 of deferred maintenance represents an additional $4 to $5 in needed future repairs.
Lamont needs to call for a full, forensic audit of the Special Transportation Fund. Connecticut taxpayers have every right to demand a cost benefit analysis of the transportation projects where money has been wasted and not prioritized.Take a ride on the 9.4-mile bus line from New Britain to Hartford, as I have. Ask yourself if all the empty seats were worth $600 million at a time when critical investments should have been made to Interstate 95 and Interstate 91. This busway costs $25.1 million annually to run, yet only generates $3.2 million in revenue. Connecticut taxpayers are on the hook for $21.9 million to operate this busway.
And why have we invested tens of millions of dollars in a rail line that facilitates economic development and growth into neighboring Massachusetts instead of investing those same funds in Metro North and Shoreline East, which affect our commuters and our local economies every single day? A forensic audit will reveal the long-term operational costs encumbered under former DOT Commissioner James Redeker that compromised the solvency of the Special Transportation Fund. The taxpayers of Connecticut will be appalled to see the millions of dollars wasted.
The more revenue you give the Hartford insiders, the more they will find a way to misappropriate the money. During the campaign, Lamont talked about his time on the Greenwich Board of Estimate and Taxation, crossing party lines and voting with Republicans.
Governor Lamont should call for a full forensic audit of the Special Transportation Fund. Such an audit would expose any waste, fraud or abuse of current transportation dollars. In this way, the governor can hold the Department of Transportation and the General Assembly accountable before placing an additional financial burden on the backs of Connecticut taxpayers.
You wouldn’t let some of these people manage your household budget and it is horrifying that they make decisions with billions of dollars of your money. While the Republican minority is fighting the good fight, they need help from we, the people. Before the taxers and the takers institute tolls, the taxpayers of Connecticut have every right to know how current transportation dollars are being spent and, in fact, wasted.
Long ago we were told that instituting a gas tax would solve our transportation problems. We were told that increasing this tax was critical to meeting the demands of our crumbling infrastructure. In the last legislative session, transportation advocates told us not to cap bonding and dedicate an additional half percent of the sales tax to transportation improvements.
Shortly thereafter, then Governor Malloy canceled critical transportation improvements claiming we did not have the capacity to fund these projects. Through this empty rhetoric, nearly four of every five miles of Connecticut’s major roads are either in poor or mediocre condition, with 57 percent rated in poor condition. Every $1 of deferred maintenance represents an additional $4 to $5 in needed future repairs.
Lamont needs to call for a full, forensic audit of the Special Transportation Fund. Connecticut taxpayers have every right to demand a cost benefit analysis of the transportation projects where money has been wasted and not prioritized.Take a ride on the 9.4-mile bus line from New Britain to Hartford, as I have. Ask yourself if all the empty seats were worth $600 million at a time when critical investments should have been made to Interstate 95 and Interstate 91. This busway costs $25.1 million annually to run, yet only generates $3.2 million in revenue. Connecticut taxpayers are on the hook for $21.9 million to operate this busway.
And why have we invested tens of millions of dollars in a rail line that facilitates economic development and growth into neighboring Massachusetts instead of investing those same funds in Metro North and Shoreline East, which affect our commuters and our local economies every single day? A forensic audit will reveal the long-term operational costs encumbered under former DOT Commissioner James Redeker that compromised the solvency of the Special Transportation Fund. The taxpayers of Connecticut will be appalled to see the millions of dollars wasted.
The more revenue you give the Hartford insiders, the more they will find a way to misappropriate the money. During the campaign, Lamont talked about his time on the Greenwich Board of Estimate and Taxation, crossing party lines and voting with Republicans.
Governor Lamont should call for a full forensic audit of the Special Transportation Fund. Such an audit would expose any waste, fraud or abuse of current transportation dollars. In this way, the governor can hold the Department of Transportation and the General Assembly accountable before placing an additional financial burden on the backs of Connecticut taxpayers.
Jeff Mill
CROMWELL — The Board of Finance has approved the proposed $9.3 million combination highway department/Water Pollution Control Authority garage and office proposal.
The board voted unanimously last week to approve the project, which will now go to residents for approval as well.
A town meeting has been scheduled to take up the proposal on Monday, March 11, at 6:30 p.m. in the Town Hall gymnasium, Mayor Enzo Faienza announced on Monday.
“We will give a presentation on the conditions of our current facilities along with a presentation on the proposed new facility. That will occur at the beginning of the Town Meeting and then we will move on for a vote,” Faienza said in an email. “I’m very happy the Board of Finance has voted to move this much-needed project forward.”
The town and the WPCA are proposing to build a 38,792-square-foot combination garage and office complex on 13.5 acres of town-owned land off County Line Road. The complex would replace the current highway garage and a space the WPCA rents off Community Field Road.
Taken together, those two facilities occupy slightly less than 20,000 square feet, according to the town engineer.
The effort to win approval for the new proposal in what is a municipal election year has been somewhat checkered. There is virtually no disagreement among town councilors and finance board members that a new facility is needed.
And yet, the three Democrats on the Town Council abstained from approving the project when it as first presented to them in January.
Two Democrats and one Republican on the finance board voted “no” when the proposal first came to them in January.
Led by former chairman Edwin T. Maley Jr., the three finance board members said they had not received sufficient information from the town administration to enable them to make an informed vote.
The administration went back to the council and this time won the affirmative votes of two of the Democrats to re-approve the project. It then back to the finance board.
But again Maley and fellow Democrat Bob Milardo balked at approving the project because of what Maley said was insufficient time in which to review additional data, as well as a procedural issue.
When the board re-visited the issue again last week, Maley reiterated his complaint that the administration had been stingy about supplying what he said was adequate information in a timely manner. Initially, that information was “sparse to non-existence,” he said.
But then he voted to approve the project.(Milardo did not attend the meeting last week.)
Maley then tried to introduce a motion to have the finance board encourage a referendum be held on the proposal. However, he could not sway his board colleagues.“There has been a good deal of publicity around this issue,” Chairman John A. “Jack” Henehan said.
“I don’t believe this is something the board should get in the middle of,” board member Amanda Drew said.
Two of the Democratic councilors have said they intend to circulate a petition to send the issue to a referendum rather than have it resolved at a town meeting. They argue a referendum will encourage more residents to turn out to vote.
Town Manager Anthony J. Salvatore said the record of approving projects at a town meeting or by referendum is mixed.The library expansion, the renovation of 5 West St., for use as police headquarters, and a prior vote on buying land off Evergreen Road for the highway garage were all acted upon at town meetings, while the lease of the town dock was decided by referendum, he said.
Town budgets automatically go to referendum.
Last year, 286 residents out of more than 10,000 people who were eligible turned out to vote on the town budget in a referendum, according to data supplied by the town clerk’s office.Meanwhile, Salvatore said Monday that he and Director of Finance Marianne Sylvester are continuing to review options to finance construction of the garage complex.
The financing package will ultimately be decided upon by the Board of Finance, he said.