Manufacturing Caucus IDs Priorities

Meeting for the first tme this year, the General Assembly’s Manufacturing Caucus drew up a list of recommendations for legislation to help Connecticut manufacturers compete and grow. 

After soliciting proposals from CBIA and other manufacturing organizations in the state, the caucus voted to recommend:

1. Providing incentives for hiring and worker training–including allowing manufacturers take advantage of R&D and apprenticeship tax credits currently available only to corporations. This proposal also includes doing more to promote incumbent worker training and additional manufacturing training courses for community colleges.
2. Modifying the Manufacturing Reinvestment Account to encourage manufacturers to invest and grow their footprint in the state. This account gives a small tax break to manufacturers that set aside money to buy additional machinery or expand their facilities. Currently, however, the tax break is so minimal that after the fees needed to participate, there is very little benefit to investing in the program. Changing that would go a long way toward incentivizing manufacturers to grow in Connecticut rather than elsewhere.
3. Creating a $25 million dollar Advanced Manufacturing Fund to encourage manufacturers to grow, purchase equipment, and hire workers—a proposal made by Gov. Malloy in his budget revisions.         

CBIA, along with the manufacturing caucus and other manufacturing organizations, will be working hard to encourage the General Assembly to adopt its recommendations on behalf of the manufacturing community.

For more information, contact CBIA’s Eric Gjede at 860.244.1931 | eric.gjede@cbia.com | @egjede