The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Budget sniping continues after Malloy makes big cuts
House Minority Leader Themis Klarides on Monday called for the General Assembly to reconvene and overturn the municipal aid cuts ordered last week by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
In response, Malloy’s spokeswoman said Klarides has a case of “buyer’s remorse.”
The Republican leader’s announcement came less than a week after the legislature put the finishing touches on a two-year, $41.3 million budget, which gave Malloy wide discretion on unilateral cost-cutting that he announced on Friday.
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said House and Senate leaders, who spent weeks in closeddoor discussions to reach the recent bipartisan budget deal, will meet again next week.
His counterpart, Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, believes Malloy is overestimating the deficit so he can order further budget slashing.
“The governor’s cuts last week were clearly intended to punish towns and cities,” said Klarides, of Derby, in a late-afternoon statement. She said legislative leaders were under the impression that Malloy’s savings would come from personnel savings and other line items called Targeted Lapse Savings in the budget.
On Friday, Malloy announced $880 million in cuts affecting both state agencies and municipal aid.
“Gov. Malloy clearly knew exactly how we intended to achieve the Targeted Savings Lapse,” Klarides said. “Instead, his recent action shifts more pain onto municipalities and is a blatant disregard for the will of the legislative leaders and the overwhelming majority of legislators who voted for the budget.”
Kelly Donnelly, Malloy’s communications director, sees it differently.
“It’s becoming clearer by the day that Rep. Klarides has a strong case of buyer’s remorse,” Donnelly said. “If she and other leaders had a specific plan for how these lapses should have been implemented, they should have included those details in the budget they gave to their members, voted on, and adopted. They didn’t do that.”
Malloy on Monday reported the estimated deficit in the budget is more than $202 million. If Comptroller Kevin Lembo agrees, the governor will have to arrange further rescissions to balance the budget.
“When you look at it in terms of percentages, about 1 percent of the total budget, and consider that we are only four months into the current fiscal year, it is not an unmanageable number,” said Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin. “If and when the governor does need to submit a mitigation plan to the legislature, we stand ready to work with the administration in the coming months to ensure the budget is balanced going forward.”
Fasano said Malloy included some items in his deficit calculation that lawmakers had not planned to be part of the budget.
“I would have hoped Gov. Malloy would have been honest about the size of that deficit and focus on starting a conversation with lawmakers about how we can address these shortfalls together,” Fasano said.