CBIA’s 2007 Government Affairs Program

A Strategic Plan for Connecticut:
Transforming Challenges into Solutions

Competitive Business Costs
Recommendations for Health Care Costs, Energy Costs, Fiscal Policy, Workplace Costs, Environment and Land Use

A. Health Care Costs

Goal: Expand access to quality and affordable health care in Connecticut by developing a comprehensive approach to reducing costs and increasing the efficiency of the private-sector-run health care system.

Recommendations:

Control health care costs and expand access to quality care by:

• Making health care quality and cost data more available to consumers, to allow them to make more-informed medical choices.
• Encouraging the use of electronic medical records to reduce medical duplication and errors and improve medical outcomes.
• Promoting healthier lifestyles by providing incentives for encouraging employer-based wellness and disease-management programs.
• Giving consumers greater ability to purchase lower-cost health insurance by allowing health plans to create more flexible health benefit designs, including variations in co-payments, coinsurance and deductibles; as well as allowing for policies with fewer health mandates.
• Establishing a moratorium on new health mandates.

Reject the imposition of a new health care tax.

Reduce cost shifts from Medicaid to private-sector payers by increasing the state’s reimbursement level for providers’ costs.

B. Energy Costs

Goal: Develop a long-range energy policy that will ensure affordable, sufficient and reliable power for Connecticut; enhance and expand a state-of-the-art telecommunications network throughout the state.

Recommendations:

Reduce the state’s high energy costs and ensure energy reliability by:

• Encouraging further development of Connecticut’s electric generation capacity and transmission system; natural gas infrastructure; and alternative energy sources.
• Streamlining the state’s siting process to speed approval of infrastructure improvements.
• Rejecting measures that would discourage a competitive energy marketplace.
• Restricting use of Connecticut’s Conservation and Load Management Fund to its intended purposes.
• Extending the current manufacturers’ exemption from the energy gross receipts tax to all commercial customers.
• Allowing smaller businesses to purchase less expensive electricity by extending direct billing to customers of 10kw or more.

Remove regulatory and tax barriers that discourage competition and investment in Connecticut’s telecommunications networks.

C. Fiscal Policy

Taxes

Goal: Develop a long-range state tax strategy that will encourage sustained business investment in Connecticut and foster new economic development.

Recommendations:

• Target tax incentives for investments in technology, innovation and productivity.
• Simplify and modernize manufacturing sales tax exemptions to make them true economic-development incentives.
• Allow entities such as limited liability companies and S corporations to take advantage of tax credits currently available to C corporations.
• Reject efforts to make Connecticut’s business taxes more onerous.
• Reject efforts to shift more of the property tax burden onto the business community.

State spending

Goal: Make the Connecticut state budget an instrument of economic development and job growth.

Recommendations:

• Adopt a two-year budget that adheres to the letter and spirit of the state’s spending cap.
• Control state spending by creating and enforcing outcome measures for state services, beginning with the costliest and most expansive programs; and by achieving better productivity and more efficient and effective programs.
• Create a comprehensive plan to reduce the state’s unfunded liabilities in public-employee retirement costs, and help municipalities in need of a similar plan.
• Review and reduce unfunded municipal mandates.
• Reshape the state budget to directly aid economic development and opportunity, by:
  • Accelerating and enhancing the state’s transportation investments to reduce congestion through multimodal means of transit, which will help the economy grow.
  • Controlling state spending to ensure the phaseout of the property tax on manufacturing machinery and equipment.
  • Increasing incentives for college graduates to stay, live and work in Connecticut, especially in high-demand technical fields such as the biosciences and engineering.

D. Workplace Costs

Goal: Encourage policies that will make the cost of doing business in Connecticut more competitive, and enable employers to maintain and create jobs.

Recommendations:

• Reject measures that discourage job creation and retention or negatively affect the state’s business climate, including proposals that:
• Repeal workers’ compensation reforms or impose new measures that would result in increased costs.
• Limit employers’ rights to communicate effectively with their employees about workplace conditions and other issues necessary for effective management, such as “captive audience” measures.
• Mandate employer-paid time off for family and medical leave and other reasons not related to work.
• Modify the definition of “personal injury” or “injury” under the Workers’ Compensation Act to hold employers harmless for conditions or portions thereof which result from lifestyle, injuries and other factors unrelated to work.
• Bring the state’s “white collar” overtime regulations into conformance with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act to reduce confusion and employers’ administrative costs.

E. Environment and Land Use

Goal: Adopt environmental and land-use policies that promote sustainable economic growth, job creation, and improved environmental quality through effective and efficient management of natural resources.

Recommendations:

Standards

• Base environmental standards and regulations on consideration of both scientific and economic considerations.
• Ensure that proposed environmental standards and regulations reflect a thorough consideration of the latest federal standards.
• Adopt clear and reasonable state standards for the reporting of spills and follow the federal reporting standards until state standards are adopted.
• Revise state cleanup standards and the state Transfer Act to allow for more expedited cleanups with reasonable and defined endpoints.

Development

• Adopt a new system for fostering brownfield redevelopment that focuses on maximizing private sector incentive and minimizing government hurdles; revising liability laws, and assigning a single authority with the responsibility and accountability for accelerating brownfield redevelopment.

Enforcement

• Implement a transparent, predictable and consistent enforcement program that places greater emphasis on compliance assistance, penalizes entities that disregard environmental compliance, and ensures timely documentation of inspection results and compliance with notices of violation.

Permitting

• Use stakeholders to help the DEP identify opportunities to streamline its operations including the permit application, modification and renewal processes.

Read CBIA's Priorities for 2007