Everywhere I travel in Connecticut, the message from our citizens is consistent and clear. Connecticut is borrowing too much, spending too much and taxing too much. The fiscal future of our state is on the precipice of collapse. Elected leaders in Hartford continue to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to understanding and articulating the level of financial commitments and debt that Connecticut is accumulating. I made the decision to run for state treasurer because I cannot sit back and watch the Hartford bureaucrats kick the proverbial can at the same time they spend what our taxpayers cannot afford. Denise Nappier has been our state treasurer for the last 16 years. In virtually every category that ranks Connecticut's fiscal health, we are dead last.

Red flags continue to be waved regarding the underfunding of the state employees' pension fund. In 1998, when Nappier was elected, the employee pension fund was funded at 59 percent. In June of 2014, a bond rating agency (Fitch) assessed Connecticut fiscal health with a negative outlook primarily due to Fitch's assessment of the funding level of the state employee pension at a woefully low 38 percent.

There are many interpretations and reports that paint an even darker cloud. Public and tax policy economists, J. Scott Moody and Dr. Wendy Warcholik, opined in an August 2014 report that the dollar amount associated with the combined unfunded pension liability for state workers and teachers actually exceeds $80 billion. This liability places the retirements of teachers and state workers at risk. This will also mean even higher taxes or cuts to social services and other state programs for future Connecticut residents to plug the hole if we don't take action to fix this problem.

Additionally, Nappier continues to use questionable metrics to project the difference in what the state has saved for pensions and what we owe the current and future retirees (unfunded liability). She assumes a rate of return on our pension investments in excess of 8 percent. Michael Bloomberg recently called such a rate of return completely indefensible. The federal government requires a rate of return assumption of 4 percent to 5 percent for private companies with pension plans.

Over the past few years, cities all across our nation have faced bankruptcy because of these very same problems. An independent assessment by Northwestern University has concluded that the pension fund could go bankrupt by 2019 if we don't make meaningful reform. On top of this glaring problem with our pension funds, over the last four years, our borrowing has more than doubled. Nappier is not being honest with the legislature, not being honest with our pensioners and not being honest with the taxpayers as to the magnitude of the problem and our true unfunded liability.

When I became first selectman of Trumbull in 2009, my hometown had many of these same fundamental problems. Trumbull's pension fund was funded at 27 percent and the town's bond rating was compromised. Decades of record high spending and taxation were causing people to move out of Trumbull because it was simply unaffordable. I ran on a platform of bringing meaningful reform. I defeated an incumbent in a town that had one-party rule for 32 years. I started on day one, leading by example; refusing to accept a town pension, cutting my own salary and reducing my own office budget by 22 percent. If I am elected treasurer, I again will lead by example. To emphasize and articulate the dire financial condition of our state's current pension system, I will begin by refusing the state employee pension as treasurer.

Furthermore, my Trumbull administration worked to identify over $1 million in operational savings in our first 100 days and deliver a residential tax decrease of 3.5 percent for the first time in 30 years. I am proud that we set the town pension fund on a path to prosperity through meaningful reform and without compromising existing employee benefits. As a result of our actions, a bond rating agency (Standard and Poors) recently upgraded Trumbull's credit rating to a AA+, one step away from the coveted AAA.

Imagine that kind of turnaround for our state? We can do it - it just takes leadership and that starts by sending reformers to Hartford.

Timothy M. Herbest is the Trumbull first selectman and the Republican candidate for state treasurer.