Jeff Jacobs: What’s UConn’s future at Hartford’s XL Center? David Benedict offers some ideas

Jeff Jacobs  The COVID-19 pandemic will end and when it does, man, it will be a glorious day for all of us.

In the sports world it will mean a resumption of seasons as we knew them, and ballparks, stadiums and arenas filled with fans instead of trepidation and cardboard cutouts. It will mean full, reliable schedules instead of games that are canceled, postponed and rescheduled piecemeal every other hour.

Best of all, the word “bubble” will be returned to meaning the five teams most likely to make or not make the NCAA Tournament.

Yet the pandemic has afforded occasional blessings here and there. In a wide-ranging podcast with Hearst Connecticut Media on Monday, UConn Athletic Director David Benedict said he thought that because of the ramifications of the pandemic, the construction costs of the school’s new hockey facility will be lower.

“Is it going to be 10, 15, 20 percent less to build it because of the time we’re in?” Benedict said. “I think there is going to be a significant savings there.”

Yet it is with the future use of the XL Center in Hartford and Gampel Pavilion in Storrs that the pandemic affords the lords of the state and the lords of the state flagship university time to figure out — let me put this politely — what the hell they finally are going to do.

There is an opportunity to get Big East basketball — clearly Connecticut’s most significant athletic venture — in the best possible situation heading into the decade. It is an opportunity that should not, cannot be lost.

No fans, only some family, are allowed at UConn games this season. That means all home games are at Gampel, because there is no need to rent the big barn in downtown Hartford. Without any events, the XL Center will be shut down most likely through fall 2021. This will allow the Capital Region Development Authority to push ahead with plans to renovate the building starting in January.

Exactly how much can be done is still uncertain.

“I don’t think there’s any question that XL can be part of the solution in moving forward in putting us in a position to deal with and solve some of our financial issues,” Benedict said. “But it can’t be under the present circumstances. There has to be a renovation of that facility. There has to be an improvement in addition to areas of that facility, be it suites, be it clubs, where you can generate additional money that can help solve our issues on campus.

“The Big East is a very interesting conference because there are many of the programs that play off campus in facilities but have on-campus facilities. We’re not so unique now as with our peers as in the American. If you look at those off-campus facilities that our Big East peers are playing in, most of them are NBA-type facilities or they’re newer community facilities like Creighton. We’ve got to raise the bar.

“The thing that is important to me is that I think it’s hard for us to make a decision on how we would move forward on campus with Gampel until we know what the decision is going to be on XL. Gampel is starting to show its age and we’re going to have to spruce Gampel up. We want to try create some amenities and things in Gampel, both for our game-day experience and our ability to generate resources to offset the university subsidy of athletics. These two things go hand in hand.”

Let’s sift through some of the pieces that Benedict introduces. He’s correct that at least half the conference plays games in major arenas, and only the XL Center is aged and outdated. There’s St. John’s with Madison Square Garden, Seton Hall with Prudential Center, Georgetown with Capital One Arena, Villanova with Wells Fargo Center, Marquette with Fiserv Forum, Creighton with CHI Health Center Omaha.

He also is correct that UConn has major financial issues; a record $42 million deficit was subsidized by the school last year and who knows how much with the pandemic in 2020? Four sports already have been eliminated, with a mandated 15 percent cut in the operating budget of all sports designed to save $10 million a year. That’s a nice chunk, but only a chunk. There have to be a lot of chunks.

There was a third thing Benedict dropped in that’s fascinating. Look, we could ignite a Connecticut Twitter storm with two sentences. Play all games at the XL Center! Play all games at Gampel Pavilion! See? That argument may never end. The best situation, I remain convinced, is to have both buildings in the best possible condition and in position to generate revenue. A full XL can mean big bucks. This is the first time I can recall Benedict substantively talking about Gampel renovations (beyond the roof). If some boxes and more advanced concessions were introduced, say, that could change the dialogue. Some would say Benedict was negotiating in print. Maybe he is. And maybe he sees a revamped Gampel as a full-time option.

If we can follow the XL timeline: The $250 million proposal to retrofit the building turned into $100 million. In 2014, about $35 million went for desperately needed improvements to keep the building operational. In 2017, another $40 million was earmarked for repairs, purchase of the Trumbull Street atrium and retail area, owned by Northland Investment, and to look for outside arena investors. Obviously, that didn’t work out. The CRDA has about $22 million remaining from that venture.

The AHL and Wolf Pack remain unknowns this season; the current plan is to try to start the league up in February. If it does, CRDA executive director Michael Freimuth said, there’s “no math in it, so it may be games, but not ‘events.’”

He also said the CRDA hopes to bid portions of “behind the house” work, such as electrical, elevators, etc. A public hearing on the updated plan will be held in early January. He said there is no certainty to the date when the State Bond Commission will release all or some of the $65 million. Freimuth wants to use the money for lower-level boxes, club space and loge seating that can generate income to help offset the $2 million annually the building loses.

The devil, of course, is always in the details. Yet the truth of the matter is we always seemed to be swimming in the details when it comes to UConn and the CRDA and examining how some of the losses are calculated. Many schools, for instance, have different ways of establishing the worth of each athletic scholarship. It isn’t actual cash.

With the rent and all the machinations of the use of state-owned Rentschler Field and city-owned, state-run XL Center, UConn also could eliminate some of its listed losses by having the state directly or the CRDA (a quasi-public agency) adding them to their bottom line. Yes, there is some nuance here, but essentially we are talking about one pocket or the other pocket of the state’s pants. If we really started in with how the money path travels with the use of the venues, your head would spin so much you’d be regurgitating more than numbers.

The point being, as Jim Calhoun would say, there has to be an overarching solution. Smart, imaginative people are going to have to figure out a way to help with both the UConn and CRDA bottom lines. Or finesse a new joint bottom line that accounts for revenue-sharing, debt payment and both sides’ concerns.

And if a solution isn’t found, shame on everyone involved. There’s time here. Let’s use it for the best solution. Big East basketball could be spectacular in the next decade.

“We’re anxious to find out how things are going to move forward,” Benedict said. “We’re very supportive of a renovation of that facility and hope we can play there a long time. But it’s got to work for all parties. I certainly get that. For it to work for us, we’ve got to be able to generate more money from that venue and not just be in a situation where they renovate the facility and all the extra money goes to pay the debt to the improvements. That puts us at a net neutral.

“It will be nice to have a newer facility, but if we can’t generate additional revenue — when I say that, a significant amount — it is going to continue to put the university, and athletics particularly, in a challenging situation.”

Intellectual honesty drives a good debate

Senator Len Fasano  Hold on to your wallets, readers of The Day. Columnist and Editorial Page Editor Paul Choiniere is at it again. (“Lamont was right, Connecticut needs tolls”, Nov. 29.) 

The oh, so predictable Choiniere is hopelessly wedded to a never-ending effort to take money out of your high-tax-paying pockets and send it to fund — you guessed it — big state government. Choiniere’s latest misleading “we’ve-gotta-have-tolls” column begs the question: Where is his journalistic integrity, which is required for an intellectually honest debate?

To The Day’s readers, I want you to know the following:

As the Connecticut General Assembly’s Senate minority leader, I met with Choiniere not once but several times regarding multiple Republican no-tolls, no-tax hikes transportation plans developed in recent years. I sent him a detailed narrative of how our alternative to Gov. Ned Lamont's job-killing tolls proposal would work.

I have corrected Choiniere personally, as well as in letter form, when he has mischaracterized the latest Republican plan — FASTR CT — as a “borrowing” plan. The Republican plan has no new borrowing and actually has less borrowing than any of Gov. Lamont’s toll proposals. In fact, our plan actually pays down on unfunded liabilities, while maintaining over $2 billion in the rainy day fund, and uses the savings associated with the retired debt to pay for the building of Connecticut’s transportation infrastructure.

Choiniere further attempts to mislead when he writes that “Republicans proposed borrowing with no new revenue source.” Since the Republican plan is not a borrowing plan, there is obviously no new revenue source needed.

Choiniere erroneously goes on to argue that if offering a no-tolls alternative was as popular as Republicans thought, the Republicans would have picked up seats in the state legislature during the recent election. The Day did all it could to make sure this election was a referendum on President Trump and on any Republican who never disavowed the president. To claim that Republicans didn’t gain seats because of our no-tolls, no-tax plan is a disingenuous argument.

Perhaps most telling is how Choiniere points the finger at Republicans for the lack of tolls in Connecticut while Democrats completely control state government. Democrats hold the governor’s seat, the House of Representatives and the state Senate. So why not blame Connecticut Democrats? At any time, they could have passed tolls and made them reality. The fact that Choiniere dared not criticize Connecticut Democrats should give The Day’s readers pause.

With Trump exiting, certain writers at The Day are now lacking column fodder. Will they now focus on Connecticut and the issues that will move our state forward? Will they strive for fairness in their columns or will they continue to ignore or mischaracterize substantive policy alternatives if they are of Republican origin?

John Adams famously said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." 

Choiniere would do himself and The Day’s readership a favor by posting that quote on his computer screen and deeply pondering it before writing his columns.

Len Fasano is the Connecticut Senate Republican leader. He represents the 34th Senate District including Durham, East Haven, North Haven and Wallingford. He did not seek re-election.

Will CT legislators raise the gas tax? With tax rates now below the national average, it’s possible

Keith M. Phaneuf  With tolls off the table in 2021, state officials could look to gasoline tax hikes to salvage Connecticut’s imperiled transportation program.

And while neither Gov. Ned Lamont nor legislators have proposed an increase, one of the argument most frequently used to defeat it — Connecticut’s gas taxes are among the nation’s highest — no longer holds true.

An analysis of states’ fuel tax burdens by the American Petroleum Institute showed Connecticut’s levies — which contribute about 36 cents per gallon to the price — rank slightly below the national average and 15th nationwide.

The API, a national trade association for the oil and natural gas industry, did rank Connecticut’s 69-cents-per-gallon diesel tax ninth overall among states, and seven pennies greater than the national average.

“I do anticipate a conversation around fuel taxes” during the next General Assembly session, said Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, co-chairman of the Transportation Committee. The session convenes Jan. 6.

Lemar, who said Connecticut should join the growing list of states also exploring road usage charges, added that the transportation funding debate can’t be postponed without severe economic risk.

“We have a multi-billion-dollar asset base … that requires substantial, continued investment,” Lemar said, referring to Connecticut’s aging, overcrowded system of highways, bridges and rail lines. “In order to meet the needs of a 21st-century transportation network, we need new revenues.”

State analysts recently projected the budget’s $1.7 billion Special Transportation Fund [STF] will run in deficit this fiscal year and in the next three, going insolvent in 2024.

And transportation officials say Connecticut currently spends barely enough now to maintain a state of good repair, with very little for improvements to speed up travel and reduce congestion.

Lamont has said he won’t pitch tolls for a third successive year but hasn’t weighed in on the issue of fuel taxes. Max Reiss, his communications director, said the transportation funding issue hasn’t gone away and it’s important some lawmakers are recognizing that.

“Members of the General Assembly must come prepared in the next session to bring resolution to this longstanding issue and help move Connecticut’s economy forward through infrastructure improvements,” Reiss said.

Lamont had hoped to bolster the transportation fund with toll revenues, but lawmakers balked at a plan to charge all vehicles in 2019 and a proposal last January to toll just trucks.

The governor was trying to avoid asking for more at the pumps from consumers, who already provide almost $700 million, or about 40% of the revenue needed to support the STF, through two taxes.

Many are familiar with the 25-cents-per-gallon, retail gasoline tax, which hasn’t changed since mid-2000.

Less known is the Petroleum Products Gross Receipts Tax, which charges 8.1% on wholesale transactions involving gasoline and other fuels. Another surcharge effectively raises that tax to 8.81%. But gas station owners have long conceded that they build this expense into the retail price, meaning consumers pay that as well.

Based on wholesale prices in Connecticut this week, the gross receipts tax adds about 11 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline. The wholesale price — and the resulting tax — were nearly the same back in July when the API analysis was compiled, according to the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association.

Combine the retail and wholesale taxes, and Connecticut motorists pay 36 cents per gallon, well below the national average of almost 43.5 cents.

Not that long ago, though, it was a different story.

After three successive summer hikes of the wholesale tax combined with several prolonged spikes in gasoline prices, Connecticut motorists in 2008 were pumping 52 cents per gallon into the state’s coffers — the second-highest rate among all states.

But with retail prices approaching $4.40 per gallon here in the spring of 2008, then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the legislature canceled a fourth wholesale fuel tax hike originally scheduled for July 2008.

And that levy has only increased once since then, in the summer of 2013.

Since then, though, more than half of all states have increased gasoline taxes while Connecticut has stood pat.

Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, co-chairman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, also expects a 2021 debate on increasing fuel taxes.

Fonfara did not propose any hikes Tuesday. But if one is considered, he said, it should involve the gross receipts tax — and reform a longstanding problem with that levy at the same time.

Such a move could substitute a percentage-based tax, linked to the price of gasoline, with a flat rate, such as the 25-cent retail gas tax.

Businesses and consumers have long complained that because the tax is based on a percentage of the wholesale price, it fluctuates sharply due to spikes and troughs in the oil market.

Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, agreed. If higher fuel taxes are needed to maintain the transportation program, a more stable wholesale levy is the place to start.

“Consumers, small businesses and the state — having a predictable revenue stream is in their best interest from a budgeting standpoint,” he said.

But Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, the finance committee’s other co-chair, was wary of raising gasoline taxes, though he also predicted legislators will want to consider them next year.

Scanlon, who supported tolls on cars and trucks — provided the system was limited and not spread across all highways — said many motorists from out-of-state can avoid Connecticut’s gas tax hikes simply by filling up before crossing the border.

“We have to figure out a way so that just Connecticut residents are not bearing the burden,” he said.

Others agreed fuel tax hikes will be difficult — for reasons of trust.

Patrick Sasser, leader of No Tolls CT, said many from his group would fight gas tax hikes with equal intensity, given the state’s track record.

Between 2006 and 2014, Connecticut spent more than $1 billion in fuel tax receipts on non-transportation programs.

“The state hasn’t proven to us they’ve been fiscally responsible,” Sasser said.

Lamont also contributed to the distrust surrounding transportation shortly after he took office in January 2019, said House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford.

The governor and his fellow Democrats in the legislature’s majority shaved $170 million off pledged sales tax revenue transfers to transportation over two years in their first biennial budget together.

And that came a few months after voters, by an eight-to-one margin, ratified the so-called “lockbox” amendment to the state Constitution that prohibits officials — once a new funding source for transportation has been established — from spending the funds on something else.

The administration argued its 2019 maneuver didn’t violate this amendment since the sales tax transfers — though already enacted in law — hadn’t actually occurred yet from an accounting standpoint.

But Candelora said voters saw it as contrary to the spirit of the amendment.

“The gimmicks that were played with the lockbox last year brought our fears to reality,” he said.

But Lemar countered that Republicans have offered no plan to salvage Connecticut’s transportation program, and the clock keeps ticking.

“We’re looking at significant [budget] shortfalls in the coming years just to maintain the status quo,” Lemar added, “and we know the status quo is not enough.”

Committee to vote on $2.9M bid for Norwalk River Valley Trail

Abigail Brone  NORWALK — The Public Works Common Council Committee is set to vote Tuesday night on a more than $2.9 million bid for the construction of the milelong Norwalk River Valley Trail.

The trail will be constructed by Deering Construction, Inc., a Norwalk-based company, for $2,924,135, according to city documents. Deering was the lowest of 12 bidders from across the state, with the highest bid at $4,645,171. The project will be partially funded by a federal grant.

An additional agreement between Public Works and Deering Construction of $292,513 will also be voted on.

The milelong stretch is the “missing link” that will connect already existing trails from New Canaan Avenue up Broad Street and another between the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk and Union Park.

Eighty percent of the cost will be funded through a federal grant, with 20 percent being paid for by the city, assistant director of transportation Michael Yeosock previously said.

The trail, which connects Norwalk, Wilton, Ridgefield, Redding and Danbury, has been in the works since 2012, with about eight miles from Wilton and Norwalk are completed.

US construction spending jumps 1.3% in October

Matt Ott, AP Business Writer  SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — U.S. construction spending jumped 1.3% in October, again on the strength of single-family home building.

The October gain follows a downward revision in September to a 0.5% decline from a previous estimate of a 0.3% gain, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. August's number was also revised significantly upward and spending in October was stronger than economists had expected.

Single-family home building has been a consistent bright spot for months as a lack of new homes has pushed builders to ramp up projects. Single-family home construction rose 5.6% in October, helping to boost a 2.9% increase in total private residential construction for the month.

Nonresidential private construction fell 0.7%, with the category that includes hotels and other lodging falling 3.1%.

Spending on government construction projects increased 1% after generally lagging for months, possibly due to budget restraints by state and local governments as the pandemic wiped out large amounts of tax revenue. Construction of roads, schools and public safety projects all increased.

During the first ten months of 2020, construction spending is up 4.3% over the same period last year.