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10/09/2019 08:00 AMLast year, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM), I worked with other mayors and first selectmen and the CCM administration to defeat efforts to shift teachers’ pension costs to towns. We also fought the tolls proposal offered at the time. Heading into this legislative session, I anticipate that we’ll be fighting once again for fairness for our town.
At a recent Board of Directors of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns (COST) meeting, we discussed several legislative initiatives that COST will address in this session. Members of the board, of which I’m vice-president, were asked to sign up for committees that will address those issues. Because of my experience working with CCM and as a member of the Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) I chose four issues to work on: teachers’ pension costs, recycling and solid waste management, regionalization (non-education), and mandate relief.
Each year, several new unfunded mandates are proposed without regard to the effect they have on towns. CCM, ACIR, and COST are working to educate legislators about the downside of such mandates. ACIR is discussing proposals to encourage shared service delivery. Some ideas make a lot of sense and some are a stretch for some communities. Madison is involved in shared services with Clinton for the firing range and animal shelter and we’re discussing other opportunities to share public safety and health functions with neighboring towns.
I’ve proposed looking at changes to our recycling program to make our recyclables more marketable, including separation of glass from the single stream. We want to look at textile recycling and composting as alternatives to solid waste disposal. And of course, I’ll keep fighting the shift of the state’s teachers’ pension obligation to towns.
First Selectman Tom Banisch
Madison
Republican Tom Banisch is seeking re-election in the November elections.