State budget chief Marc Ryan delivered what he thought would be good news to state employees and taxpayers late last week. He said that Gov M. Jodi Rell would not be considering layoffs or tax increases as a remedy for the state’s possible $1 billion budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year. Instead, he said, the state should expect spending cuts for every state agency, with most of the savings coming from cuts to Medicaid programs and state grants to cities and towns for education.

This may be good news for state employees, who will get the rare gift of job security in a period of sacrifice, but it certainly is not good news for the state’s taxpayers. No matter how much Gov Rell swears off tax hikes, by dipping into state education grants to make up the state budget shortfall, she will be creating budget shortfalls and new taxes in the towns and cities throughout the state. She may not be raising state taxes, but she certainly will be raising local property taxes. Of all the taxes paid in Connecticut, the local property tax is far and away the largest, constituting about 40 percent of all taxes paid for state and local services. State income and sales taxes trail far behind.

Since 1989-90, when the state paid for 45.5 percent of local public education costs, Hartford has steadily cut back its commitment to fund its constitutional obligation to provide equal educational opportunity throughout the state. The state’s share of local public education costs has now dropped below 40 percent. A concomitant retrenchment in expensive state mandates for municipalities, however, has not occurred. The most expensive state mandate, special education, now costs more than $1 billion annually, yet the state is paying less than a third of the cost. Special education is vitally important to thousands of students in Connecticut, yet local property taxpayers who pay most of the cost have absolutely no say in whether it should be a priority for their communities.

It is commendable that Gov Rell and her budget director are committed to exercising fiscal restraint through spending cutbacks, but to do so without enabling towns and cities to do the same by easing existing mandates and refusing to add new ones is disingenuous. We don’t call that fiscal restraint; we call it passing the buck.