Connecticut Audubon Society Opposes Diverting Funding from the Community Investment Act

The Community Investment Act is one of Connecticut’s most important sources of land conservation funds. Since 2005, it has funded 88 purchases, permanently protecting 2,707 acres of open space and 15 community gardens, at a cost of $15.3 million. Another round of grants announced recently will protect an additional 2,730 acres.

But a bill being considered by the General Assembly in Hartford would divert $4 million annually from the traditional purposes of the Community Investment Act – open space acquisition, farmland preservation/dairy support, brownfields remediation and affordable housing – into a “healthy foods initiative” for local schools.

The healthy foods initiative is no doubt a worthy program. But it should not be used to divert funds from land conservation and the other well-established purposes specified in the Community Investment Act. Connecticut’s conservation community is recommending that the healthy foods initiative be funded as a separate line item in the Department of Education budget.

Here is the text of a letter that we at Connecticut Audubon Society sent recently to the General Assembly’s Education and Appropriation committees:

Connecticut Audubon Society opposes the inclusion in H.B. No. 6357 (An Act Implementing the Budget Recommendations of the Governor Concerning Education) of a provision that would fund the Department of Education’s Healthy Foods Initiative through the Community Investment Act (section 22, paragraph A).

The provision would unacceptably siphon precious funding from the four customary land use purposes of the Community Investment Act, namely open space acquisition, farmland preservation/dairy support, brownfields remediation and affordable housing.

As the state’s leading conservation organization, with a membership that reaches into all corners and municipalities of the state, Connecticut Audubon Society’s main interest here is in the open space funding component of the Community Investment Act.

Money for conservation in Connecticut is hard enough to come by as it is. Shoe-horning the Healthy Foods Initiative into the CIA would benefit a no-doubt worthy cause at the expense of one of the CIA’s core programs – one that has had demonstrable achievements.

Since 2005, the CIA has funded 88 purchases through the Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program, permanently protecting 2,707 acres of open space and 15 community gardens, at a cost of $15.3 million. Another round of grants announced recently will permanently protect an additional 2,730 acres.

Connecticut Audubon Society stands with the rest of Connecticut’s conservation community in recommending that the Healthy Foods Initiative be funded as a separate line item in the Department of Education budget.

We urge your committee to remove the provision that would fund the Healthy Foods Initiative through the Community Investment Act.

— Tom Andersen, director of communications and community outreach

Respectfully,