Researcher: JSB Page 1 3/16/22
OLR Bill Analysis
SB 127
AN ACT CONCERNING COMMUNITY INVESTMENT BOARDS AND
NEIGHBORHOOD ASSISTANCE.
SUMMARY
This bill requires the chief executive officers (CEO) of certain large
municipalities to establish neighborhood community investment
boards to identify funding priorities for municipal revenue sharing
grants. The CEOs must establish a board for each neighborhood in the
municipality and appoint the board members, who may include
residents, business owners, and civic leaders. The bill authorizes these
municipalities to spend part of their municipal revenue sharing grants
on the identified priorities.
By January 1, 2024, the bill requires the Office of Policy and
Management (OPM), within available appropriations, to create and
maintain a website that lets residents and organizations submit
proposed solutions to problems in urban areas (§ 3). If the OPM
secretary or his designee decides a proposal is viable, he must identify
a municipality or neighborhood in which to implement the proposal as
a pilot program, monitor its implementation, and assess its results. OPM
must give a financial award, within available appropriations, to each
resident or organization whose proposal becomes the basis of a pilot
program that the secretary or his designee deems successful.
The bill also establishes a task force to study (1) programs for which
nonprofit providers use state funding and (2) state agency requirements
for nonprofit providers and compliance with those requirements.
EFFECTIVE DATE: October 1, 2022, except the OPM website and task
force provisions are effective July 1, 2022.
§§ 1-2 — COMMUNITY INVESTMENT BOARDS
The bill’s requirement to establish community investment boards in 2022SB-00127-R000021-BA.DOCX
Researcher: JSB Page 2 3/16/22
each neighborhood applies to any municipality with a population over
60,000 according to the 2020 Census, but an area of no more than 30
square miles (i.e., Bridgeport, Bristol, Hamden, Hartford, Meriden, New
Britain, New Haven, Norwalk, Waterbury, and West Hartford). The
municipality’s CEO must select the board members, who may include
residents, business owners, religious leaders, community development
corporation representatives, and community group representatives. If a
neighborhood revitalization zone (NRZ) has been established in a
neighborhood, the CEO must designate the associated NRZ committee
to serve as the neighborhood’s community investment board (see
BACKGROUND).
The bill requires the community investment boards to identify
priorities for spending municipal revenue sharing grants.
Municipalities with community investment boards may choose to
spend these grants so that:
1. 35% is spent on priorities identified by the community
investment boards,
2. 35% is spent on priorities identified by the municipality’s
legislative body, and
3. 30% is spent on priorities jointly agreed upon by the boards and
legislative body.
§ 4 — TASK FORCE ON STATE -FUNDED NONPROFIT P ROVIDERS
Under the bill, the task force consists of 12 members, two each
appointed by the six legislative leaders. Their appointments may be
legislators and must be made by July 31, 2022. The appointing authority
fills any vacancy.
The bill requires the Senate president pro tempore and House
speaker to select the task force's chairpersons from among its members.
The chairpersons must schedule and hold the first meeting by August
30, 2022. The Planning and Development Committee's administrative
staff must serve as the task force's staff. 2022SB-00127-R000021-BA.DOCX
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The task force must report its findings and recommendations to the
Planning and Development Committee by January 1, 2023. The task
force terminates on that date or when it submits its report, whichever is
later.
BACKGROUND
Municipal Revenue Sharing Grants
By law, municipal revenue sharing grants are funded through the
municipal revenue sharing account by a sales tax revenue diversion.
The statutory formula for calculating the grant amounts is based on each
municipality's real and personal property mill rate (other than its motor
vehicle mill rate). Grant amounts are reduced for municipalities whose
spending exceeds a specified municipal spending cap.
NRZs
The state's NRZ program helps neighborhood residents and
businesses develop and implement plans to revitalize economically-
and socially-distressed neighborhoods. NRZs are municipally
designated.
NRZ committees are established after a municipality adopts the NRZ
planning committee's strategic plan in order to implement it (CGS § 7-
602). NRZ committees must reflect the neighborhood’s composition and
include tenants and property owners, community organizations, and
representatives of neighborhood businesses or businesses that own
property in the neighborhood.
COMMITTEE ACTION
Planning and Development Committee
Joint Favorable
Yea 19 Nay 7 (03/04/2022)