ARTHUR JOHANSON and MICHAEL GUARCO

Statewide in this decade, while yearly property tax rate increases have been running at 5 to 6 percent, overall municipal employment has been flat and declining. At the same time, the rate of rejection of local budgets has doubled and tripled from 10 years ago. Against this backdrop, the many volunteers who serve on local boards and commissions have begun fighting back - coming together to support the Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility. This is a broad alliance that ranges from council members, selectmen and aldermen to boards of education and finance.

Since its inception in 2005, nearly 200 boards from more than two-thirds of the state's municipalities - towns and cities alike - have joined in endorsing this grass-roots bipartisan initiative to right the ship, and get equal attention placed upon the expenditure management problem that we face at the local and state level.

Every year, new mandates without legislative funding get dumped on the towns, driving up costs - and taxes. With nearly 80 percent of the typical municipal budget being for wages and benefits, state labor mandates constrict the ability of local boards to manage costs effectively. Such mandates dangerously accentuate the political and fiscal problem of unbridled public sector compensation, which outpaces that of the vast majority of our taxpayers. Meanwhile, good programs get choked from local budgets, a result of the imbalances in Connecticut's protectionist binding arbitration system.

The state prevailing wage law is another protectionist policy from the past - a relic of the Depression era - that drives up municipal project costs and effectively reduces the competitive mix of bidders on local projects. This increases what local taxpayers must pay by 10 to 30 percent, according to study after study from across the nation. It also mandates the highest wages in the region, rather than average or competitive compensation.

In Granby's case, the excesses of prevailing wage cost taxpayers nearly $1 million annually or 3 to 4 percent of each property tax bill. That is why so many states have never had or have repealed this costly mandate, and why the National Association of School Boards and even the federal Government Accounting Office have called for its elimination.

While many believe that the time for repeal of such costly mandates may well be here, the General Assembly, at least, should update the minimum cost of a municipal project to which the prevailing wage rules apply. This would reflect the substantial increase in construction costs since 1991, when the current levels were set. The language in House Bill 6640 - raising the project cost threshold to $1 million from the current levels of $400,000 on new work and $100,000 on renovations, with indexing to construction inflation going forward - is the reasonable compromise that would provide some real relief for local taxpayers. This bill has been supported through sponsorship and in committee vote by 20 percent of the combined legislative chambers. It is refreshing to see at least some legislators stand tall in representing all of their constituents and not just perpetuate what benefits special interests.

As taxpayer rebellion burns across the nation, and in the towns and cities throughout our own state, discussion around the Capitol goes on about taxing us more just to send some of it back to the municipalities to slow the increase in property taxes. The governor also has proposed a property tax cap, but it will fail unless accompanied by meaningful reform of the mandates that accelerate the slow but steady squeeze on local programs.

Real change only can happen by strengthening the ability of municipalities to manage their own fiscal matters.

At no cost to the state, the legislature can enact reforms that will do exactly that, thus flattening the municipal cost curve for the future. If moderate reforms had been enacted years ago, Connecticut wouldn't be in its current fiscal crisis. Indeed, the property tax cap and reform issue would have been nipped in the bud by putting the responsibility and power to handle budgetary matters back where it belongs - at the local level.

Arthur Johanson, a Democrat of Burlington, and Michael Guarco, a Republican of Granby, are longtime board of finance chairmen. They are among the founding members of the Connecticut Municipal Consortium for Fiscal Responsibility - an alliance of 192 boards and chairmen from 115 towns and cities.