State cuts coming after the holidays

Legislature to address Medicare Savings Program in January

The General Assembly will gavel into session next week, but won’t actually gather to restore income eligibility for 113,000 elderly people in the Medicare Savings Program until the first week of January.

Legislative leaders made the announcement Tuesday night after a two-hour session in the Capitol, as they drew closer to a deal on where to cut the $53 million for the seniors.

Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz expects the official start to be Dec. 29, but action won’t occur until Jan. 4 or 5.

“We have to deal with this sooner than later,” said Aresimowicz, DBerlin.

“We are ready to address the cuts,” said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby. “We have to, obviously, talk with our caucuses. The problem is, it’s Christmas week, so there are people away, and this is a very important issue to many people that represent their districts and we want them to be able to be here to vote on it.”

Overtime reductions and curtailing new jobs in the Executive Branch agencies are the core of the potential savings, but Klarides told reporters that some of those savings cannot be realized.

“We’re looking at other areas, too,” she said.

“The overtime piece proved to be

problematic,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven.

The leaders declined to offer more specifics, pending closed-door discussions with their caucuses. Democrats have a 79-72 majority in the House and an 18-18 tie in the Senate.

Earlier this month, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the scheduled 50 percent cut in income thresholds that were to take effect Jan. 1, have been extended through February. Malloy has asked lawmakers to meet to address the $208 million deficit, but the leaders said they are more likely to do that after tax revenue is reported

in mid-January.

“We have seniors around the state of Connecticut that are making decisions on what programs they’re going to enroll in, not enroll in; what their budget looks like for the next couple of months,” Aresimowicz said. “If we can provide them with that peace of mind to know, again that the Legislature is again acting in a bipartisan way to assure the benefits they so desperately need, that’s what we wanted to do.”

Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said that he thinks the planned savings are not likely to affect overall state services.

“We have looked at a whole bunch of different ways of coming up with the number,” Fasano said.