With only Democratic votes, Connecticut lawmakers on Friday passed a $19.7 billion Democratic budget that attempts to fix a projected $960 million deficit, but Republicans questioned whether the plan would solve the state's continued financial woes.
The Democratic controlled House met in special session Friday to vote on the plan, which is expected to result in hundreds of unfilled state employee positions.
The bill cleared the Democratic controlled Senate on Thursday along party lines. It now moves to Governor Dannel Malloy's desk.
House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, and a succession of her GOP colleagues predicted lawmakers will be back to pass a deficit-cutting plan, arguing this proposal doesn't make the long-lasting budgetary changes needed to finally stop the spate of deficits.
"Are there cuts in it? Yes. Are there some consolidations in it? Yes," Klarides said. "But when you look at a budget that has a $1 billion deficit just for the next year, and $10 billion for the next six years, eight years, it is not enough once again to use this approach to budgeting."
Democrats said the plan makes deep and difficult cuts, more than $820 million, to the second year of the two-year $40 billion budget that was passed last year. Spending reductions are made across state government, from mental health services to state payments to hospitals. Some sparked criticism from minority Republicans, who unsuccessfully tried to replenish some cuts with funds from the public campaign financing account.
The new budget is a retooled version of the second year of a two-year $40 billion budget lawmakers passed last year.
The budget implementer bill includes a big revamp of the way Connecticut promotes and thinks about its homegrown entrepreneurs. If it passes the House today, the legislation will boost the profile of CTNext, and create what it terms innovation places. It seeks to strengthen the linkages between research going on in Connecticut’s universities, and potential commercialization in the private sector.
"It is innovation that separates us from the rest of the world," said Senator John Fonfara, the principal author of the legislation, "and Connecticut has all the ingredients to compete in the innovation economy." He said the bill was a response to the departure of General Electric, which left to find a more entrepreneurial culture in Boston.
But Republicans said the economic development parts of the implementer should have been passed as standalone legislation during the regular session.
Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano objected to many other parts of the bill, picking out a provision that would allow towns to levy a five percent tax on admission to sporting and entertainment events. "This will be the first time we will be giving a municipality a right to tax, other than those traditional, historic taxes we all have become accustomed to," he told the chamber last night. "That makes me extraordinarily nervous."
The Senate leadership decided against debating Governor Dannel Malloy's signature criminal justice reform package, Second Chance Society, saying they weren't sure there were the votes in the House to pass it.
This report includes information from The Associated Press.
