Malloy, left out, mum on his intentions
With the flourish of a veto-proof margin, the House of Representatives voted Thursday to give final legislative passage to an overdue, bipartisan budget crafted without the direct involvement of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
After a concise and focused twohour debate, the House voted 126 to 23 to send Malloy a $41.3 billion twoyear spending plan and put Connecticut on the verge of ending a budget impasse that has stretched 118 days into the new fiscal year.
The Senate voted 33-3 just 10 hours earlier to approve the budget, also easily achieving the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto. An override requires 24 votes in the Senate and 101 in the House.
Legislative leaders remained hopeful the Democratic governor, whose administration has been excluded from budget talks over the past three weeks, would sign the measure, which closes huge projected deficits with only modest cuts to municipal aid and no increases in income or sales tax rates.
Malloy would not speculate Wednesday on whether he would sign the bill. His staff gave no hint after final passage.
“Since January, Gov. Malloy has been calling on the legislature to take action to adopt a balanced and responsible budget,” said Kelly Donnelly, his spokeswoman. “We recognize that they believe that they have achieved this end and are now sending a budget to him for his consideration and we appreciate their work. At the same time, it is incumbent on the governor and his administration to carefully review this budget — a complete document of nearly 900 pages that was made available only a few minutes before it was called on the floor.”
Malloy’s administration said it already had found one serious flaw in the language of a complicated hospital-tax increase designed to leverage more federal Medicaid reimbursements. Legislative leaders say are they are reviewing the language and will make any necessary revisions in a supplementary bill.
An ideologically diverse mix of 10 Democrats and 13 Republicans voted against the budget, including the only member of the legislature running for governor, Rep. Prasad Srinivasan, R-Glastonbury.
Legislators said the compromise would stabilize the state’s finances and its municipalities, making defeat unthinkable.
“You have to weigh the scale,” said House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. “We don’t have alternatives. Right now, we have no budget. We have no revenue coming in.”
Ritter offered praise to the governor, but also delivered a warning of the consequences of continued impasse.
“Schools will close, libraries will close. I’m not saying this to scare people. It’s true,” Ritter said. “There’s a moral obligation here to not let that happen.”
“This budget is not perfect,” said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby. “Does it do everything we need it to do? No way. But this budget is a start.”
Klarides said spending and bonding caps, municipal mandate relief and other reforms will give Connecticut a longterm path out of its fiscal woes.
House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said he cited a poll to his caucus early in the 2017 General Assembly session that showed 86 percent of Connecticut residents wanted the legislature to act more often in bipartisan fashion.
“We did compromise in areas, but overall I think it’s a good budget that will move Connecticut forward,” he said.
The budget would provide emergency assistance to keep Hartford out of bankruptcy, implement a stringent spending cap, as well as a new statutory limit on borrowing.
The budget relies on tax and fee hikes worth roughly $500 million per year for the biennium. It also would raid more than $175 million from energy conservation funds — which largely are supported by surcharges on consumers’ utility bills — and would offer Connecticut’s seventh amnesty program for tax delinquents since 1990.
The budget cuts deeply into operating funds for the University of Connecticut — but far less than a Republican-crafted budget would have one month ago.