The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Budget deal a moving target
Elimination of car tax holding up vote
HARTFORD — Yet another leadership meeting followed by closed-door caucuses in the Senate on Monday were more evidence that the so-called tentative state budget was still under negotiation.
As lobbyists waited in the Capitol corridors, leaders conferred with nonpartisan staff in the second-floor offices of Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz until about 1 p.m., then Senate leaders went upstairs to face the budget music in private Democratic and Republican caucus rooms that flank the Senate chamber.
Three hours later, Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said they expect to vote on a final package this week to end the nation’s longest budget impasse.
“Members seemed very pleased of the fact of a pending bipartisan agreement,” Looney told reporters. “There are, of course, additional details to follow. We did tell them that we had a few remaining issues to resolve.”
One of those issues is a proposed elimination of local car and truck taxes in the second year of the biennium, a loss of $800 million statewide that would have to be compensated through other taxes, and possible higher real estate rates in cities and towns.
Looney said that under the current plan, car taxes, even in highly taxed cities like Bridgeport, Waterbury and Hartford, would be capped at 39 mills in the first year. But Looney indicated that the outright elimination of the tax in the second year might not be certain.
“I still remain very much in favor of repealing the car tax and it’s something that I think is a nuisance tax that working families across the state would like to see go away,” Duff said.
“But again, we’re dealing with negotiations with three other caucuses and we have to work on an agreement that will bring votes and balance.”
“We talked about the issues,” Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano told reporters after emerging from his caucus about 6:20 p.m.
Fasano said he did not take a head count of support for the incomplete deal. “That is a complicated scenario,” Fasano said of the car tax. “But there are many solutions to it and you’ve got to think it through.”
“I do think that there are a number of areas that we still have to work on,” Duff said. “But a lot of the major issues are almost wrapped up at this point, and we went over a number of those things with members of our caucus.”
The leaders met again in the early evening and wanted to finish a deal to present to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has been skeptical over the lack of a written document.
“We’re still looking forward to a vote later this week,” Looney said.
One of the key areas of discussion will be ways to bring the second year budget, which begins on July 1, 2018, into balance.
“We do want to finalize it tonight,” Looney said Monday.
“It’s hard to announce anything until you have everything,” Duff said. “I think you want to make sure that you don’t put yourself ahead of where the final product is because there are a number of things that are in play.”
The state finances have been run by Malloy’s executive order since the start of the current fiscal year on July 1.
As further details of the possible compromise continued to emerge, businesses and green-energy advocates on Monday rallied against a proposed shift of ratepayers’ funds from the state’s Green Bank and energy efficiency funds to help balance the budget.
Looney said that plans to continue to take about $27.5 million from the Green Bank and $65 million from the efficiency fund remain “under discussion.” But Fasano said his caucus is “comfortable” with the fund transfer.
Meanwhile, State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier warned that while there seems to be “progress” toward a compromise budget, she complained, as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy did last week, “we have yet to see the specifics of what that budget will include.”
Nappier said that as lawmakers craft a final document for a possible vote before the end of the month, they should consider the need for financial flexibility.
If lawmakers are determined to create an annual cap of $2 billion on the issuance of bonds for capital projects, they may need more cash, which could require more borrowing, she said.