State Budget: PILOT Program Fully Funded, New Haven Gets $90M

NEW HAVEN, CT — Just days after New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and other municipal and economic leaders campaigned for full funding of the Tiered Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, with the passage of Connecticut's biennial budget by the state Legislature Wednesday, the funding for the program was doubled to $90 million for the city.

The just-passed budget also provides an increase of over $2 million in additional education funding for New Haven.

The hoped-for increase in the program championed by Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney that pays municipalities like New Haven who do not get the benefit of property tax payments from non-profits like Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital, "represents the most significant investment in municipalities – particularly those with high concentrations of communities of color – in over two decades," Elicker said.

Under the previous formula, New Haven was slated to receive just over $41 million. Elicker said last Friday, that getting the program fully funded — "across the finish line," he said — has been a "top priority."

“This is a historic day for New Haven and puts us in a significantly better financial situation for years to come," Elicker said. "With this budget, our city will be able to make greater investments in the residents of our city, provide services, reduce our structural debt, and put a greater annual contribution into our pension – saving tax payers money in the long term – all without raising taxes this coming fiscal year."

Last Friday, Elicker and mayors and first selectmen from a number of Connecticut cities and towns including Hamden, West Haven, North Haven and Guilford, held a press conference to make a final pitch for the program to be fully funded calling it a matter of "equity."

Saying he's felt like "Don Quixote fighting this fight," at the event New London's Mayor Passero Michael said the tiered PILOT is an "issue of equity."

"Because of our property tax system and the tax exemptions that are placed on our cities, the poorest tax bases in the state have to support the service for our affluent neighbors."

Wednesday night, Elicker said the doubling of the payment in lieu of property taxes also "represents a significant effort by the state of Connecticut to make our tax system more equitable. I’m so proud of the work our coalition of municipal leaders was able to accomplish – and thankful for the work of the New Haven delegation, as well as Speaker Ritter, and our Board of Alders who were partners throughout this process.”

As reported earlier this year by the New Haven Independent, the measure will reshape the state's current PILOT system into three different tiers based on the relative economic needs of Connecticut's 169 different towns and cities, the Independent reported.

With a tiered PILOT, less well off cities and towns, ones with more tax-exempt property owners, namely colleges and hospitals, New Haven being among the best examples, would get a greater cut of PILOT reimbursement, and the richest towns and cities would get a smaller slice, the Independent explained.