Muffins and measles confuse commissioners

It all started when the Connecticut General Assembly, having run out of things to tax after failing to bring back highway tolls and legalize taxable marijuana, passed a sales tax increase on restaurant menus and dinners prepared by grocery stores.

There was a public hearing on the bill in April but it got little coverage and the one story I found online indicated the public’s only representatives were angry restaurant owners, who believed a 7.35% tax on dinner might not be attractive to diners.

The bill passed and then the state Department of Revenue Services got into the act, issuing a guideline that found lots of other taxable “prepared food” purchased in grocery stores for “immediate consumption.”

It turned out to be quite a list. There was an expected tax on meals that could be catered or taken home and heated. But the list also included popsicles, hot dogs on buns, a hot bag of popcorn, but not a cold one, and, of course, the great snack foods found in pre-packaged bags of lettuce or spinach.  I don’t think cole slaw cabbage or heads of lettuce were included, as they are rarely, if ever, immediately consumed in the store or on the way home.

To better guide the grocers on how and what to tax, the DRS got very specific about muffins. Five muffins would be taxable, said the DRS, on the grounds the purchaser intended to eat those five muffins immediately — in the store or in the car or just as soon as he got home and put the other groceries away. But if she bought six muffins — or bagels and, I assume, doughnuts and croissants, they were clearly for home consumption at some later date and therefore exempt from the tax. 

With apologies to the late Casey Stengel and the 1962 New York Mets, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

The DRS commissioner is Scott Jackson, a former Hamden mayor who was labor commissioner when former Gov. Dannel Malloy moved him to the DRS post.  As I write this, his commission’s list of immediate edibles has been revised downward after a public outcry of some volume. The commissioner explained the revision was inspired by a reading of the entire bill — which is always a good idea.

Jackson isn’t the only commissioner whose department has been the object of some richly deserved ridicule in recent days. Renee Coleman-Mitchell, a Lamont appointee to head the Department of Public Health, has had an unusually shaky start in what is usually a rather benign position. 

When two parents from Bristol filed suit to block the release of school immunization data on the grounds that the immunization rate statewide for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines is above 95%, the commissioner decided she wouldn’t let the public know what schools failed to reach that desired 95%.  

Last year, there were 102 Connecticut schools that had vaccination rates below the 95% threshold recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

That’s at least 102 good reasons for making the information public — if the public’s right to know such things weren’t enough. But the governor sided with his commissioner for a little while, saying the requirements for release had changed.   

But then the commissioner added to the drama and announced she didn’t feel it was within “the purview of my role” to comment on public health matters being considered by the Legislature.

Dr. Raul Pino, her predecessor, said, “It is.” Governor Lamont said, “I think I’ve got to talk to her.” He probably feared if the public health commissioner got away with not talking about public health, other commissioners, like those overseeing banking, insurance or consumer protection, might decide to refrain from sharing their alleged expertise on those subjects.  

After their talk, Coleman-Mitchell said she would release the vaccination data and she and the governor announced they both supported repealing the law that allows parents to refuse to have their kids vaccinated on religious grounds.

Commenting on public health matters is now clearly in Coleman-Mitchell’s purview but the governor needs to talk to his other cabinet members to make certain they are fully aware of what their jobs entail. 

Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at rahles1@outlook.com.