The money that Hartford, Conn., Mayor Luke Bronin needs to keep his city out of bankruptcy is more than a drop in the state budget bucket — but not that much more, the CT Mirror reported today. The $40 million extra that Bronin wants is one-fifth of 1 percent of the entire state budget. Put another way, the deficit in the next state budget is 57 times greater than Hartford’s ask. Connecticut will spend twice that much this year just to run its Department of Motor Vehicles. Hartford’s solvency may hinge on how Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and state legislators decide on whether Connecticut taxpayers can absorb another major tax hike next fiscal year. The math, and some state budget proposals already on record, suggest hundreds of millions of dollars of new revenue is needed to balance the books without gutting aid to all communities. The politics — of those who accept tax hikes as well as those who have ruled them out — suggest that it would be very difficult to get votes for a Hartford bailout when aid to most other communities is disappearing.
