Connecticut
CT officials focus on tax cuts as new election cycle starts
Republicans have staunchly defended unprecedented state efforts in recent years to shrink Connecticut’s massive legacy of pension debt, even though it’s leached billions from education, health care and other core programs in the process.
But the GOP has begun to modify that stance, willing to scale back that effort if — and only if — those dollars go back to middle-class households in the form of big tax cuts.
Citing high energy costs, inflation above federal targets and Congress cutting deeply into human services, Republicans say Connecticut families need more help badly now, but not through new state programs.
And with many Democrats already renewing their push for a new child-based income tax cut and the next state election less than 12 months away, the 2026 General Assembly session could be swamped with tax-cutting ideas.
GOP: CT households must benefit directly from big surpluses
“For my constituents, it’s about over-taxation,” House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said during a floor debate last month. “We are seeing billions and billions of dollars flow into our coffers.”
The GOP leader was referring to the aggressive series of state budget caps that have generated unprecedented surpluses averaging more than $1.8 billion, or 8% to 9% of the General Fund, every year since 2017. About $4 billion from those bounties has been used to bolster budget reserves, but the bulk, about $10 billion, has been dedicated to whittling down the massive pension debt Connecticut amassed over seven decades prior to 2011.
The primary beneficiaries of those payments, Candelora said, involve tens of thousands of state employees, municipal teachers and retirees from those two fields.
“But what about the other 3.4 million people, the people that are telling us we can’t afford to continue to pay property taxes in the state of Connecticut?” he added. “I think we need to start looking at the people that are slipping into poverty, slipping into need, because everything in the state of Connecticut has become unaffordable.”
In late October, House Republicans called for a $700 increase in the state income tax credit that covers a portion of households’ municipal property tax bills.
With the potential to restore $500 million annually, all to the middle class, it would rival the 2023 income tax cuts ordered by Gov. Ned Lamont and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly for the most generous relief package in state history.
But it also would mean this fiscal year’s projected surplus — another big windfall projected at $2 billion — would be about 25% smaller. That means less to pay down pension debt, which still exceeds $33 billion, according to Lamont’s budget office, and isn’t projected to be eliminated until the mid-2040s.
But Candelora said Connecticut could afford a big tax cut and still make big annual inroads on its debt problem. The $10 billion in surplus funds its deposited into the pensions since 2020 were in addition to the more than $3 billion in required payments Connecticut makes annually through regular budgeting. Prior to 2020, Connecticut never had contributed surplus to its pensions.
And since Lamont and his fellow Democrats in the legislature already have diverted some funds away from surplus and into new spending, why couldn’t Republicans deflect some to cut taxes on households in need, the North Branford lawmaker added.
Lamont and Democrats dedicated $300 million from last fiscal year’s surplus to launch a new program to expand affordable child care. That initiative also has a claim on a portion of future surpluses.
And despite repeated warnings that Medicaid costs were exploding, Democrats underfunded the program by $284 million last fiscal year, effectively leaving the problem to be solved using surplus dollars.
“I think I’ve been dragged into this conversation unwillingly by the Democrats,” Candelora added.
House Republicans likely won’t be alone in supporting tax cuts.
Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, has “serious concerns” about redirecting any funds away from paying down a pension debt, but “if we’re going to do anything [else] with those funds … it needs to be returned to [households] in the form of tax relief.”
The GOP’s two gubernatorial contenders, former New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart and state Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich, both agreed Connecticut can help its middle class and save diligently to reduce debt.
Given the huge budget surpluses Connecticut has reported since 2017, “it’s hard to not ask the question: Are we being overtaxed?” Stewart said.
And while she praised the bipartisan legislative effort eight years ago that helped Connecticut save more, stop tax hikes, and begin reducing debt, the former mayor added it’s still too expensive for many to live here.
“I see that every day,” she added. “Often times, both parents are working and they’re just scrounging by.”
“At some point, middle-class taxpayers are the forgotten people of Connecticut,” Fazio said, adding relief would provide an economic assist as well. “All the evidence suggests that income tax cuts spur more economic growth than other forms of tax cuts.”
Democrats have their own tax-cutting ideas
Republicans also won’t be the only ones putting tax-cut proposals on the table.
Many progressive and moderate Democrats in the General Assembly have been pushing for the past four years to create a permanent state income tax credit for low- and middle-income households with children.
The most popular plan, raised back in 2021 by then-Rep. Sean Scanlon, a Guilford Democrat who now serves as state comptroller, would provide $600 per child, up to $1,800 per household.
The United Way of Connecticut, another leader in the fight for a state child tax credit, vowed to continue the battle in September when it released its latest affordability analysis, showing a record-high 581,000 Connecticut households, about 40%, couldn’t afford a basic “survival” budget.
The United Way estimates it cost a family of four — two parents and two children — $116,000 to cover basic survival needs, including food, housing, utilities, child and health care and transportation in 2023.
Lamont’s budget spokesman, Chris Collibee, said the governor “will listen to any ideas that reduce taxes, increase taxpayers and make our state a more attractive place to live and work.”
Rep. Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, co-chairwoman of the tax-writing Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, said this week she anticipates many state tax relief proposals aimed at the middle class in the next session, especially since the GOP-led Congress focused the bulk of federal tax cuts it ordered last July on the nation’s wealthiest households.
“That creates a structure where the very wealthy are receiving a tax benefit and the middle and less privileged classes are not,” she said.
Can CT afford to cut taxes and bolster human services?
But both Horn and House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, warn frequently that any tax cuts must be sustainable. In other words, don’t promise so much relief it must be scaled back one year later if the economy slips.
And state legislators are more worried about budget stability now than perhaps any other time since they installed new caps eight years ago. That’s because Congress ordered more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other human service programs to help finance federal tax relief.
Connecticut expects to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in annual federal assistance, although the bulk of those cutbacks likely won’t take effect until 2027 or 2028.
Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden, a progressive who is challenging Lamont for the 2026 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, said many lawmakers still want to put more dollars directly into working families’ hands.
But Elliott, a founder of the legislature’s Tax Equity Caucus, added tax relief is a good tool — but not the only one — to help families.
It does a family little good to save $700 on state income taxes if Connecticut cuts municipal aid so much that same household faces an $800 increase in town property taxes.
Similarly, it state budget policies drive up community college tuition, slash rental and winter energy assistance and ignore rising health insurance costs, then tax cuts help little or not at all.
“It’s not one or the other,” Elliott said. “It seems that there’s a hypocrisy on the part of the Republicans that they are only willing to affect [costs] with tax cuts.”
If a bear is encountered, officials urge people to remain calm and avoid running.
Instead, speak in a calm voice, slowly back away while keeping the animal in sight, and make yourself appear larger by raising your arms or moving to higher ground.
If a bear continues to approach, DEEP recommends becoming more assertive by shouting, making loud noises, and throwing objects such as rocks or sticks.
While black bear attacks are rare, officials stress that people should never play dead during an attack.
“If attacked by a black bear, fight back vigorously,” DEEP advises. People should use any available object and focus defensive actions on the bear’s face and muzzle.
A man has been arrested for murder in connection with the death of a Duxbury, Massachusetts woman, months after her body was found in a Connecticut home under suspicious circumstances.
This week, the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of death for Janina Brooke Murphy to be blunt force injury of head and the manner, homicide.
On Tuesday, Connecticut State Police arrested 28-year-old Cole Werhan of Burlington, Connecticut and charged him with murder.
Brooke Murphy, as she is referred to by her mother, was found at the bottom of a staircase in March inside the Burlington, Connecticut home where she was living. At the time, Connecticut State Police called the 26-year-old’s death suspicious.
“Another detective got on the phone. He said, ‘I want you to know something. Your daughter didn’t just fall down the stairs. She had wounds all over her,’” Brooke’s mother, Beth Murphy, told WBZ.
Murphy said her daughter and Werhan were dating, and she is determined to seek justice. “It’s confirmed, it wasn’t an accident. So that part, really, that’s tough,” Murphy said.
Murphy described her daughter as kind and artistic.
“So many people said she was my best friend. Like, pretty much everybody said Brooke was my best friend. She had a heart of gold,” Murphy said.
Brooke Murphy’s 27th birthday fell on June 17. Connecticut State Police said they are continuing to actively investigate the circumstances surrounding her death.
Werhan was held on a $5,000,000 cash bond and is scheduled to appear in Torrington Superior Court in Connecticut on Wednesday morning.
Merrill Lynch has hired a veteran Morgan Stanley manager to help oversee branches in Connecticut, western Massachusetts and portions of New York.
Jairzinho “Jazz” Skair joined Merrill as a market manager overseeing offices in Hartford, New Haven, Springfield, Glastonbury, West Hartford, Farmington, Mystic, Guilford, Southbury and Ridgefield, a Merrill spokesperson confirmed. He reports to Central Shoreline Connecticut Market Executive William Cholawa, who returned to the thundering herd in 2024 after around a decade at UBS.
Skair had most recently been a branch manager for Morgan Stanley in Hartford, according to his LinkedIn. He had started his career in the legal department at UBS Wealth Management USA in 1998 and served in a number of finance, sales and management roles, including branch manager in Westport, before joining Morgan Stanley in 2023.
“I had the opportunity to work closely with Jazz during my time at UBS and saw firsthand his passion for coaching, developing people, and driving results,” Cholawa said in a LinkedIn post announcing the hire. “He is a servant leader who believes in being Authentic, Present, and Useful, and those principles are reflected in the way he leads and supports others.”
A Morgan Stanley spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
Merrill and its wirehouse peers have been shuffling and poaching field leaders as they seek to bolster recruiting in an increasingly competitive market.
To that end, Merrill said it had hired two father-son teams with a combined $560 million in client assets. Both joined on June 17.
Roy Savarick and his son, Evan, joined Merrill from Wells Fargo Advisors where they managed around $280 million in assets, according to the Merrill spokesperson. They generated around $2.3 million in annual revenue.
The elder Savarick, a 44-year industry veteran, is based in the firm’s Florida Tropics market led by Jason Edelmann. Evan, who has 12 years of experience, works in New York City from Merrill’s Park Avenue office led by Joe Doonan. They had joined Wells in 2022 from Morgan Stanley, according to BrokerCheck records.
Separately, Brandon K. Pribyl and his sons, Tobey and Bailey, joined Merrill from Baird Private Wealth Management. They had around $280 million in assets and are based in Davenport, Iowa, according to the spokesperson.
The team, which generated around $1.9 million in annual revenue, is part of the Mid Land Market led by Will Cohen. The senior Pribyl had spent the first decade of his career at Merrill. He was not registered between 2009 and 2016 when he joined with Baird, according to BrokerCheck.
(Updated with clarification on the market manager role.)
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