Todd Brown for Fiscal Responsibility   Unfunded Mandates

The state of Connecticut has a spending problem. The state cannot balance its own budget. Equally troubling are the unfunded mandates the state imposes on the cities and towns. A perfect example of an unfunded mandate is HB5941 An Act Concerning the Use of School Buses Powered by Electricity introduced by my opponent, Antonio Guerrera. The bill if passed would have required all cities and towns to purchase exclusively electric school buses for transporting school children. The problem is electric school buses are so expensive that even the manufacturer, Navistar, stated "because of the price, most districts can't afford to buy more than one or two." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577018471878074352.html And yet my opponent wanted to force school districts to buy only electric school buses in a time when town budgets are pinched tight. I am not the only one to question the wisdom of an electric school bus mandate. The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities urged the Transportation Committee not to act on the bill. http://advocacy.ccm-ct.org/Resources.ashx?id=d961fedd-4de1-459a-8ba9-6d7fc4aa2d52